“I want to.” His breath feathered against her forehead. “I swear I want to.”
His mouth found hers in the moment she realized she’d yet to let go of his arm. He kissed her, offering damnation and salvation in one eloquent motion. She wanted to pull back, but something stronger—his arm, she thought—pushed her farther into his embrace until she was wrapped in his warmth and strength. The frock coat slipped to the ground, but she hardly noticed as his tongue burned into her mouth, flaming her entire body, torching even the wet velvet recess of her femininity. His kiss exploded dormant emotions within her, and her hand rose inexpertly to caress his cheek.
This drove him further, his hand lifting to cover her corseted breast. She moaned, her kiss-drugged mind unable to form a protest. His thumb roughly brushed the crown of her breast, and through the layers of silk and cotton her nipple became a hard sensitive nub. Shocked, she was torn between wanting him to stop and begging him to drive forward. Anson had seldom kissed her, and she’d never allowed him to go this far. Now she knew why. He held no fascination for her. Feeling Trevor’s hard demanding mouth take hers again, her only thought was that she would never summon the strength to make him stop.
His teeth gently nipped at her lower lip, and his tongue caressed her neck. He removed his hand at her breast, and she despised the empty feeling she had when it left.
His attention went to her neck, and one by one he released the tiny buttons that ran the length of her chemisette. When the lace was parted down to her bosom, he slipped a warm hand beneath it, caressing her flesh. Helpless, she sagged against him.
“I see you’re not made of ice after all,” he whispered against her hair, his palm pushing lower down her bosom to cup her breast.
His arrogance drove a nail into her heart. She wanted that hand to touch her. She wanted his body to keep her warm. But she wanted them only in tenderness. She wanted it only if his heart and mind were as engaged as his body, because hers certainly were. Yet it was clear that his were not, and with a strength she hadn’t known she possessed, she pushed him away from her and turned to rebutton her gown.
“Alana,” he snapped, obviously feeling, as she did, that he’d just fallen into cold seawater.
“No—don’t say anything. We had an agreement. You can’t change it from minute to minute.” Her icy fingers fumbled at the tiny mother-of-pearl buttons. She hadn’t realized how frigid the night was out on this dock surrounded by the water.
“You’re weren’t protesting earlier.”
“I was a fool. I’m not in this marriage to assuage your lust. Remember that.”
“Of course,” he said in a voice filled with venom, “a fine little lady like you wouldn’t have gotten into this marriage if it meant you had to wrap your thighs around me every now and then.”
She cried out in anger and pushed past him. Running down the planks of the pier to the boathouse, she vowed to go through the door even if she had to break it down. Wailing like a banshee and beating her fists upon the locked door, she was finally blessed by the sound of a key turning in the lock. A lantern lifted, and she came face-to-face with a surprised gardener.
“Mrs. Sheridan!” the man gasped. “I canna think how we locked ye out here!”
She didn’t answer him. With the terrible sound of a repressed sob, she ran up the hill to the house, her chest heaving with unshed tears, her heart breaking in two.
17
For three days they said not a word to each other, going about their daily routine in utter silence. Alana arrived for dinner; Trevor silently watched her be seated. When Trevor announced plans for the evening, he sent a note to her suite on her breakfast tray. The soirees were the most difficult. For Mara’s sake, Alana couldn’t let anyone know she was anything but pleased with her husband. So they play-acted with a vengeance Shakespeare would have approved.
Mara continued her social success. But sensitive to her brother’s moods, she couldn’t miss Trevor’s dark looks whenever she caught him gazing across a ballroom at his wife. It was worse when they spent the evenings at Fenian Court. The three of them would sit in silence, Trevor drinking his spirits, staring morosely at the fire, Alana working her Berlin wool-work as if the hounds of hell were after her to finish. Mara was beside herself. The time spent in the gazebo had done nothing to bring them together. If anything, Trevor and Alana seemed more cold and detached from each other than before.
This evening was spent much like the others, at home by the blazing hearth in the drawing room. They had dined on a magnificent turkey, but though the bird could have fed twenty, none of them seemed to have an appetite. Trevor was into his third glass of whiskey, and Alana was nervously admiring her finished needlework, a picture of Queen Victoria’s pet spaniel, clearly regretting the speed with which she had completed it. Mara was just about to go to the piano and stir them up by playing a bawdy Irish tune Eagan had illicitly taught her when the devil himself walked in.
Eagan entered the drawing room with as much disturbance as possible. He tossed his top hat onto the sofa next to Alana, startling her into looking at the door. Then he sauntered into the room, his gait none too steady, for it was a good train ride from Manhattan and when he had started out, the Pullman’s decanters were full. The smile on his face was dazzling, and Alana couldn’t help but return it.
“Sweet sister-in-law, how I’ve missed you!” He pulled her to her feet and bussed her soundly on the cheek. Embarrassed, Alana blushed and looked at Trevor. He stood and, white-knuckled, clutched his cane.
“What are you doing here, Eagan?” he said, his voice low and full of disapproval.
“Mara, me love, how foin it is to see yer luvely face agin,” Eagan announced, mimicking street Irish.
“What are you doing here?” Trevor asked, losing patience.
“Me own dear brother!” Eagan took the glass from Trevor’s hand and kicked back the entire contents. Finished, he put his hand on his chest and stumbled back, a grimace on his boyish face. He could barely speak. “I swear, Brother, ye be drinkin’ th’ bloody fires of hell. Thas stuff could kill the divil hisself!”
Trevor was not amused by his brother’s antics. Sternly he asked, “Why did you come here? Don’t you know I’m on my honeymoon?”
“Ah well, you told me you were going on your honeymoon, but with Mara here and all, I thought to meself, ‘Now what kind of honeymoon is that for me brother’s foin bride?’” Eagan stole a glance at Alana and winked.
Appearing thoroughly annoyed, Trevor took Alana’s arm. She almost pulled away, but one look into her husband’s eyes told her that now was not the time.
“’Tis time to take me ‘foin bride’ to her room,” Trevor said, the sarcasm dripping from his tongue. “We’ll be saying good night, Eagan, but if you learned a thing from that ‘foin’ Columbia education, you’ll be on a train heading back to New York this instant.”
“Wonderful. So I’ll be seeing ye both at breakfast, then?”
Alana had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing. Mara had no such restraint and giggled behind her hand. Trevor, however, looked ready to pop a blood vessel. When he looked down and saw the amusement dancing in her eyes, his face grew so furious, it was all Alana could do to control herself.
“Trevor, me brother, ye don’t look so well. I niver seen such a shade o’ purple.
Upon Eagan’s mocking accent, the dam broke, and Alana broke into hysterical laughter. Infuriated beyond reason, Trevor took her by the arm and dragged her upstairs to her suite. She laughed the entire way.
“How goes it here, Mara?” Eagan asked, sobering only slightly when his brother and Alana had left the room.
Mara released a great sigh and slumped on the sofa. “I suppose you didn’t receive my last letter. I locked them out on the dock—you know, the gazebo?”
“You did?” Eagan said, his voice full of admiration.
“Yes.” Mara’s face grew long. “But it didn’t work. They hate each other, Eagan. I know it’s not possibl
e, but I swear it’s so. And I don’t think Trevor’s shy at all. I think something else is going on around here.”
“It’s a fine line between love and hate. We just need to make them cross it, that’s all.”
“I don’t think we can make them, Eagan. I think something like that has to come from within.”
Eagan looked at her, a tenderness in his eye. “How very astute you are, little sister. Sometimes I wonder where you get all this knowledge.”
“It’s just common sense, Eagan.”
“Well, you’re the only Sheridan with any of that.”
“Am I so different from you and Trevor, then?”
Suddenly not liking the direction of the conversation, Eagan tweaked her nose and skillfully changed subjects. “Enough of that. What are we to do about Trevor? If we can’t force him and his wife together, I’m at a loss for ideas, and I want this marriage to work.”
“They might have had a chance if we hadn’t gone to the Varicks’ ball. I made them hold hands one night, just as you told me, and by the end of the evening, they almost looked as if they enjoyed it. But after Trevor saw Mr. Stevens at the Varicks’ ball, he hasn’t been the same ever since.”
“Who is Mr. Stevens?”
“Alana’s old beau. He walked right up to Trevor and took Alana waltzing. And the ire I saw in those eyes—I swear, Eagan, I thought Trevor might punch him!”
Eagan’s expression filled with mischief. His Irish accent came back in force as he said playfully, “Is that so, me darlin’?”
Mara nodded.
“The old plan ain’t workin’, is it.”
Mara shook her head.
“Then you know what I think?” Eagan laughed. “I think me brother’s bloody jealous, is what I think. And you know what, me sweeting? I think what we need now is to change direction. Yessir, and yer darlin’ brother’s just the lad to do it!” He tipped his head back and released another rather inebriated laugh.
His dear sister Mara only looked confused.
Trevor escorted Alana to her bedroom with all the warmth of a military procession. Still stifling her giggles, she arrived at her door and dared a peek at him. If he’d smiled then, she was sure his face would have cracked. Opening her door, he gave her a crisp “Good night” and abruptly left her there. Suddenly at a loss, her laughter died, and she stood in the threshold for a moment, grappling with something akin to abandonment.
After Margaret helped her into her nightgown and she went to bed, Alana heard Trevor pacing on the other side of these gilt double doors. His step was distinctive, considering every third beat was the hollow thump of the cane on the floorboards. Lying in the dark staring at those doors, her thoughts again turned to lions, caged ones. She remembered the anger and raw power of the lions she had seen as a child in Mr. Barnum’s American Museum. Now she could imagine them, pacing endlessly back and forth across the bars, every muscle, every ounce of energy, tightly leashed, silently rebelling at their captivity until that split second when backs were turned and escape was possible.
And vengeance was possible.
Trevor paced until the wee hours of the morning. Alana knew this because she lay in her bed the entire time wide awake. Thinking of lions.
18
“Good morning! It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?” Alana put on her brightest smile and entered the breakfast room. To her delight, Mara and Eagan were already there, Eagan obviously nursing a grand hangover.
She went to her place and waved Eagan back as he gallantly tried to help her with her chair despite his aching head. She dropped her napkin in her lap and allowed the footman to give her a double helping of eggs.
Though she’d had little sleep the night before, for some reason she was feeling unusually optimistic. The fact that Eagan and Mara were both at Fenian Court didn’t hurt. They would buffer her from their older brother, and she’d come to the realization late in the night that with their chaperonage she and Trevor might find a common ground, a place where they could be amicable, and continue in this marriage along more suitable and tolerable lines. The possibility of this cheered her considerably, and her anxieties of the night before seemed to have melted beneath the brilliant Newport sun.
“Trevor must be still abed,” she commented casually, staring at the empty chair opposite her own. “I wonder if I should send some breakfast up to him?” As strange as it seemed, she warmed to the wifely duty of sending breakfast to her husband.
“You can’t. He’s gone.” Mara was almost on the verge of tears.
Staring at her, Alana now saw her glum look. And what she’d assumed was a hangover couldn’t account for all of Eagan’s grimness.
“Whatever do you mean, he’s gone?” she asked Mara in her most unemotional tone. What a lie it was.
“He left for Boston before dawn. In his note he said something about business,” Eagan answered for Mara.
“I see.” Alana looked down at her eggs and wondered when she had had the desire to touch them.
“What’s wrong with him?” Mara lashed out, her black brows knitted together in a frown. “It’s his honeymoon! This is terrible. We three are here, and Trevor’s gone to Boston—”
“Hush, Mara.” Eagan nodded to Alana’s still figure. “She doesn’t need that now.”
Alana hardly heard him. She couldn’t think of anything but that Trevor had left her behind, and on her honeymoon. The hurt she felt was so deep and all-encompassing, she didn’t know how to hide it, so she just sat very still and stared at her eggs.
“I’m sure he’ll be back soon, Alana,” said Eagan. “We don’t own much in Boston. He can’t be there forever.”
She closed her eyes, unwilling to shed tears, unwilling to let him see the pain that had sprung up in their depths. By all rights, this shouldn’t have hurt her. But it did hurt her, terribly, and it only grew worse as she thought of the possibilities. “Does Miss Dumont frequent Boston?” she whispered.
The pause was leaden.
“It’s nothing like that, right, Eagan?” Mara asked, her girl’s voice begging for reassurance.
“No, no—I’m sure it’s not.” He frowned and stared at Alana, her reaction obviously concerning him. “Look, Alana, he’s not doing what you think—” He stopped and turned to Mara. “Sweeting, leave us, will you?”
Mara gave Alana a concerned glance, then reluctantly put aside her napkin and departed.
When she was gone, Eagan took the chair next to Alana and patted her hand. “There’s no reason to take this so hard. He’s just taking care of a few business dealings while he’s up here.”
“You don’t believe that any more than I do.” She looked at him, pain and desperation etched on her beautiful face. “He’s gone to her, hasn’t he.”
He was silent for a moment. “I don’t know,” he answered truthfully, his emerald eyes filling with pity.
“You know about our ‘marriage,’ then?”
“Yes.”
She swallowed back her rising tears. “And does Trevor plan it to be always this dreadful?”
Eagan shook his head in disgust. “This is all my fault. I should never have come here, stirring things up. I thought Mara and I could help.” He snorted in contempt. “I even thought to make him jealous, can you believe that?”
“No, this is all my fault,” she countered numbly, grabbing at any rationalization that would keep her from the truth. “I should know better how to deal with this. I’ve—I’ve let it affect me because I”—her voice dropped to a whisper—“because I—”
She couldn’t finish. But when he touched her hand, the tears began streaming down her cheeks, and her words came out in a sob. “I guess I wanted to believe those vows, Eagan. For one terrible, insane moment, I wanted to pretend they weren’t lies.”
He pulled her to his chest, and she cried as if her heart would break. He held her to him for a long time, and only after several minutes could she collect herself enough to pull back.
“Forgive me,” she whisp
ered, doing her best to wipe her eyes with her hands. He took his napkin and dabbed her cheeks. Tenderly he brushed away the strands of hair that had escaped her chignon. When he revealed her face, things happened very quickly. Their eyes met, and as if by instinct he bent down and kissed her softly on the lips.
It was over before she realized what he’d done, and apparently he hadn’t been that aware of his actions either. But with realization dawning, his eyes opened wide, and a sheepish grin slid onto his face. “Sorry, á mhúirnín. It’s force of habit for me to kiss a pretty girl.”
She couldn’t look at him. Her cheeks flamed with embarrassment.
Still searching for an explanation, he began, “But of course I’m not used to kissing my own sister-in-law.”
“You needn’t explain. Really.” She braved a glance at him, hardly believing what he had done. He cracked that wonderful rake’s smile.
“No, I owe you an explanation, Alana.” He shook his head in a manner that could only be described as vaguely amused self-disgust. “My brother and I are two different species with two different outlooks on life. Trevor, you see, makes money and seeks retribution for the thousands of slights to our background. That is his purpose, his passion, his essence. I, on the other hand, am then left free to spend the money and chase the girls—both of which I’m shamefully adept at.”
She didn’t say a word.
“I wish I could say it’ll never happen again, but—”
“When you have the right girl, Eagan, it’ll never happen again.”
A cynicism reminiscent of his brother touched his lips. “I’ll never find the right girl, á mhúirnín. There’s no girl out there for me. Believe me, I’ve tried them all.”
She studied him. He was being honest with her. He was a rake, a bounder, a father’s nightmare. If she were not so helplessly captivated by his brother, she could see how easy it would be to fall into this charmer’s arms. Those wicked green eyes and that handsome Irish face must have conquered innumerable women. She was almost sorry she was not one of them. But that was impossible, and not because of her wedding vows or any fears of reprisal. It was impossible because even against her will, her heart and soul could lie no more. She longed for Trevor.
Lions and Lace Page 23
