by Sara Bennett
“It was a perfectly respectable offer! Well,” he muttered, “you know what I mean.”
“Oh I know what you mean, dear boy! Swish apartment and all that. Strange she rejected you.” His eyes twinkled. “And of course you can’t marry her, can you? So what’s left for the poor girl? You should be thinking of getting her comfortably settled. I think you could do a lot worse than to put her in the way of Nicholas and see what transpires.”
Sinclair found he did not wish to see Eugenie comfortably settled. All very well for his uncle to place the practical solution before him but Sinclair was not feeling practical.
Not where Eugenie was concerned.
Eugenie was surprised to see Sinclair in his riding clothes striding toward her through the perennial borders. Mr. Fenton had just left her after a lengthy conversation about the butcher’s daughter and how he longed to marry her, if only his family would come round to the idea. Eugenie wasn’t surprised to be the recipient of a discussion of Nicholas Fenton’s personal problems; it was something that happened to her often.
“Your Grace,” she said, with a little curtsey and a smile.
“Miss Belmont.” He glanced about. “Your companion is gone then?”
“You mean Mr. Fenton? Yes, he’s gone home. Did you wish to speak to him?”
As she was conversing she noticed he looked a little ragged—not his clothes, they were impeccable as always, but his demeanor. Had something occurred? Bad news regarding Terry and Annabelle? But before she could ask Sinclair spoke again.
“I believe Mr. Fenton has been calling rather often?”
That was when the idea struck her that he might be jealous. That he imagined Nicholas was pursuing her and might win her and she would be happily married to another man.
Eugenie knew she shouldn’t be pleased at the idea of the duke being so possessive of her, but she couldn’t help it. She was pleased. And she was wicked enough to want to tease him into showing his feelings.
“Yes, he has come here every day. Twice yesterday. Do you know he has the bluest eyes I have ever seen?”
Sinclair gave her a sharp glance. “Indeed. From what I saw of him they looked a little too close together for him to be trustworthy.”
“Oh no, I am sure Mr. Fenton is extremely trustworthy.”
He grunted, and she decided to postpone her game.
“Have you heard anything about the runaways?” she said anxiously.
“No.”
“Where could they have got to?” Eugenie sighed, downcast.
He reached for her hand. As he touched her she felt the tingle of attraction between them, and her blood grew warm. She tried to withdraw from his grip, but he held on, stepping closer, so that she had to tilt her head to meet his eyes.
“I wish . . .” he began, but didn’t finish. His mouth closed tightly on whatever wishes he’d been about to share with her.
His fingers brushed across her cheek, lingering on her lips, and then he was gone.
Eugenie watched him walk away, longing for him to take her in his arms and make her body sing. It was the first time since they’d arrived that the Sinclair she knew and loved had shown himself. Yes, she loved him, she admitted bleakly. It was a love that could never have a happy ending but that did not stop her from feeling it.
He’d meant to stay away. He’d sworn he would not go near her again. But here he was, in only his breeches and stocking feet, outside her bedchamber looking down at the pale glow from under the door, like some lovesick hero in a Byronic poem.
His body trembled with need. He wanted her in his arms, his body inside hers. He couldn’t bear the thought of her with someone else—he’d been tormented by visions of her kissing that Fenton boy. His thoughts were chaotic.
He thought about knocking but it seemed ridiculous, so he simply opened the door and took a step inside her room.
She was reading, propped up with pillows, her hair loose about her shoulders and curling wildly, catching fiery light from the candles. Her skin had a soft warm hue, the shawl about her shoulders slipping to disclose a nightdress of plain white cambric.
If she was Helen of Troy he couldn’t have thought her more beautiful.
Her eyes were wide and dark. She didn’t speak and neither did he. They knew each other’s desires too well and with a need so desperate and raw there was only one way to assuage it.
He lay down beside her and blew out the candle. A moment later her hand touched his hair, fingers sliding through the thick wave at his temple, and the next moment her lips pressed to his skin.
“Sinclair . . .”
Blindly he lifted his face and found her mouth. “Don’t speak,” he muttered against her lips. “Pretend this is a dream.”
“Yes, a dream,” she breathed.
Their lips clung. He heard himself groan. Felt her arms slip about his neck as she pressed closer, the soft curves of her body melding itself to his harder angles. He curved his arm about her hips and his hand splayed over her bottom; she was so accessible without stays and petticoats. He hardly knew where to begin.
He lowered his face to her breasts, nuzzling against her, drawing up her voluminous nightgown so that he could press his skin to hers, breathe in her scent, taste her with his lips and tongue.
She was quivering with desire, and he could hear her heartbeat thundering in his ear as he held her close. He slid his hands up her thighs, reveling in her warm skin.
“I can’t sleep,” she said, a catch in her voice.
“Nor can I.”
He drew her closer, and she cupped his face with her palms to kiss his mouth, his cheeks, his eyelids, as if she would know each inch of him. His hands closed on her hips, urging her. He was so hard. He knew if she touched him he’d explode and yet he wanted her to touch him.
“If this is really a dream . . .” she began softly. “I can do whatever I want and it won’t matter.”
“Yes.”
She reached to stroke the ridge of him through his breeches.
He groaned, dropping his brow to her shoulder.
“Should I stop?”
“No, don’t stop . . .”
When she undid his fastenings and began to explore he did not demur, giving himself into her power. She stroked the velvet length of him, her fingers curious, eager.
Her breathing was ragged. Touching him was arousing her. He cupped her mound in his palm, feeling the moist heat of her, and then used his fingers to tease her swollen, slick flesh.
It was time.
Slowly, he eased his way inside her. She was so ready there was no resistance, but the sheer joy of being within her, of knowing her desire for him, was urging him to drive wildly into her body and finish it.
He restrained himself with difficulty.
He rose again, until he was almost completely free of her, and then slid down into her. Slowly, with excruciating care. Using his powers to increase her pleasure. And his.
Her passion was building. Soon she was panting, the muscles of her thighs trembling, her breasts rising and falling, as she moved more quickly upon him. He caught her hips in his hands and thrust hard inside her, meeting her, pushing her.
And then it happened, the wild insane moment when their bodies merged and melded. He covered her mouth with his to stop her cries of ecstasy and his own groans.
For a long time they were quiet, allowing their breaths to slow and their hearts to stop racing. The perspiration cooled on their bodies. Then at last Eugenie shivered and sat up. Her white nightgown enclosed her, her hair was loose about her shoulders. She looked virginal, but he knew she was his own personal succubus, who came to him every night in the darkness and tormented him until dawn.
“Sinclair . . .” she began. “We cannot go on like this.”
“I know.”
He kissed her again, tenderly now,
sated, and rose from her bed. The door closed behind him.
Eugenie lay back and closed her eyes. She knew she should be full of anxiety but she couldn’t feel anything but the dull throb of pleasure. If she really did love him then she suspected he was close to loving her. Not that it made any difference to their future.
Half asleep now, she decided on a new epitaph for her gravestone:
Eugenie Belmont, who loved a duke, and died of a broken heart. . .
“They were in Stoke-on-Trent on Monday,” Sinclair announced, looking up with a glitter in his eyes as Eugenie entered the drawing room. “Finally some news.” He paced toward the windows and then back again, too wound up with excitement to stay still.
In the meantime Lord Ridley had risen to his feet and set about making Eugenie comfortable in a green silk-covered chair. “We have heard back from my spies,” he said, with a wink. “The runaway pair has been spotted. They were on the Manchester road.”
“Will we be able to catch them before they reach the border?” she asked anxiously.
“Perhaps you should stay here at Framlingbury,” Lord Ridley said. “Let my nephew chase after them.”
There was a pause. Sinclair looked irritated and distinctly uncomfortable. “No one is forcing Miss Belmont to go.”
“My brother will need me,” Eugenie said cautiously. She knew then they had been discussing her predicament, as if she was something untidy to be sorted and tucked away.
“There, you see,” Sinclair declared triumphantly. “Miss Belmont wants to come with me.”
His uncle frowned. “She hasn’t exactly said that, Sinclair. Is that what you really want, Miss Belmont?”
Suddenly Eugenie felt as if she was at a crossroads. He was asking her if she wanted to remain here and pursue her friendship with Nicholas. She was not silly enough not to realize Lord Ridley had been blatantly throwing them together over the past days. And it wasn’t as if she didn’t enjoy his company, but he was in love with someone else. Just as Eugenie was.
Well, there was her answer. She’d give up the Nicholases of the world any day to go off with the duke to who knew where and get into all sorts of trouble. If she was honest it wasn’t only the need to help Terry that was driving her but the need to be with Sinclair.
“I want to go with the duke,” she said firmly.
Lord Ridley sighed and shook his head. “Dear me, you are as bad as each other. Very well then. Now that is settled . . . With the roads in the state they are it will be quicker if you go by canal.”
Eugenie saw that he had set out a map on the table before her, evidently he and Sinclair had been examining it before she arrived. She could see that it displayed the north of the country with its growing industrial towns and vast tracks of moorland and mountains. There were blue lines crisscrossing the land, some wide and some narrow. They passed through the towns and cities, intersecting and then traveling in all directions, to the ports on the coast as well as on to smaller towns and villages. For some reason there seemed to be a great many blue lines.
“Canals,” Lord Ridley explained, tapping his finger on the intricate network. “They cut across the countryside, using water as a means of transport as opposed to badly maintained roads. The larger canals are used for barges carrying raw materials to the mills from the ports, for instance from Liverpool to Manchester, and then when the cotton has been spun or the wool woven, it is returned to Liverpool to be shipped out. But there are many smaller canals used for transporting local produce from town to village and back again, or carrying passengers.”
He’d grown enthusiastic, and Eugenie could see that the canals were a passion with him.
“And one of these barges will take us on board?” Sinclair said doubtfully.
“Oh there’s no need for that. I have a narrow boat of my own, a vessel built especially for traveling the canals. I find it very restful on the water, once I leave behind the busier commercial routes. And I always have horses stabled at the end of my journey, in Wexham. Once there all you’d have to do is head for the border and stop the lovelorn pair from plighting their troth.” He raised his eyebrows. “So to speak.”
Sinclair shifted restlessly. “I don’t know, Uncle. A narrow boat seems a peculiar way to follow someone.”
“Nonsense, my boy! It is the perfect way to follow someone and I won’t hear any more objections. I consider the matter settled.”
Sinclair was wearing his haughty look but he didn’t offer any further arguments.
“I must write to my family before we leave,” Eugenie said, hastily getting to her feet again. “They must be dreadfully worried.”
At least she hoped so, she thought, avoiding Sinclair’s cynical eyes. Her father would be disappointed if the elopement didn’t come off, but the rest of the family would be relieved to have gotten out of yet another scrape.
“Be ready to leave in an hour,” Sinclair called after her curtly.
“Give the poor girl two,” Lord Ridley retorted. “What woman could be ready in one hour?”
“Eugenie can,” Sinclair said with a note of pride in his voice.
“Oh-ho,” his uncle murmured, with a wink at Eugenie, “then she is a unique specimen of her sex.”
“She is matchless, Uncle.”
Eugenie closed the door, her heart thumping. Matchless? Did he really mean that or was he teasing her? She didn’t have time to consider the question now, she told herself, as she hurried toward the stairs. She had to pack and pen a brief note. Perhaps it was just as well she had so few clothes to worry about, although Lord Ridley’s servants had cleaned and pressed what she did have so she was fit to be seen.
It occurred to her to wonder what Annabelle must be feeling. From what Sinclair had said his sister had taken very little with her, too, almost as if she was intent on leaving the past behind. But Annabelle was not Eugenie. All her life she had been used to having the best of everything. Eugenie could not help but wonder how much the duke’s sister was enjoying being out in the world, cut off from her family, reliant upon her own wits and Terry.
Remembering the way Sinclair had behaved when his comfortable coach was taken from him, she did not think Annabelle would be enjoying it at all.
Chapter 30
Terry had reluctantly let the coach go and taken to horseback. Annabelle insisted that was the only way she could continue the journey north and he was willing to believe her. But Annabelle was no horsewoman, and he should have remembered that. After only a day of riding she declared her back broken and could not rise from her bed at the inn. Lizzie, herself stiff and sore from the unfamiliar motion of the horse, eventually coaxed her into eating some toast and then they went out for a stroll, to stretch her “poor aching legs.”
Manchester was one of the larger and smokier northern cities, and the noise from the mills, running day and night, was not something any of them was used to. Annabelle held her handkerchief to her nose and mouth and gasped and groaned, while Lizzie gazed about wide-eyed. Finally they succumbed to Annabelle’s complaints and returned to the inn, where Annabelle shook out her skirts and pointed out the soot she found upon them, as well as the reek of smoke in her hair.
“How can people live like this?” she wondered.
“I suppose they have no choice,” Terry said wearily.
“How can they have no choice? Everyone has a choice.”
He looked at her in amazement. He shouldn’t have been surprised at her lack of worldliness, not after the past few days, and yet he was.
Lizzie watched them uneasily, aware another argument was brewing.
“What have I said?” Annabelle demanded haughtily. When he didn’t answer her eyes grew wary and a little anxious. “Terry, have I said something stupid again?”
He shook his head. “No, of course not, only . . . Annabelle, if a man, or a woman, has little or no money, how do you think they
have a choice about how they earn their living? They will take any job offered them. I believe mill jobs pay well, so I suppose they will take them over laboring in a field or washing clothing for gentlefolk. With the money they can buy food and clothing, they may even buy a house—or rent one. If there are children, then more money needs to be made. Do you see? Not everyone is as fortunate as you, who does not need to work to buy things, because your family already has money.”
“I am sure my ancestors worked very hard for their money,” she reminded him coolly.
“I’m sure they did,” he agreed, although he wasn’t at all sure about that. He remembered his father saying the St. Johns had got rich from fleecing their tenants and enclosing their fields.
For a moment Annabelle was unusually quiet and then she sighed. “I am being stupid, aren’t I? You have done all of this for me and I have been very ungrateful. I’ve never stopped complaining. I’ve even been ill on you, poor Terry.”
She reached out to touch his hand and smiled. She was so beautiful that for a moment Terry thought he might be able to love her after all.
But then she spoiled it.
Her gaze went beyond him and her eyes narrowed. “I loathe the color of the walls in this room,” she said. “Why on earth would anyone choose such a sour shade of yellow?”
Terry stood up. “I think I might go for a walk before dinner,” he said, and closed the door as she began to complain about being left alone. He knew if he spent another hour with her, another minute, he would leap from the window.
He didn’t realize at first that Lizzie had followed him out, and when he did he turned to face her, to tell her to return to the room, that he was not very good company just now. Instead to his surprise he found himself holding out his arm. With a shy glance at him, she slipped her hand through his elbow.
“She has been very spoiled, you know.”
“Don’t make excuses for her, Lizzie.”
“I’m not excusing her. Annabelle is what she is. Perhaps you saw her differently, Terry. She is a beautiful girl. Could you have been wearing rose-tinted glasses?”
