“I never told you that!” Her green eyes flashed.
“You didn’t have to. You’re trying so hard not to tell me anything, it’s obvious. Why didn’t you tell me, Jenna?” It made him wonder what else had she elected not to share? That’s when he knew. She was in abject denial although she wouldn’t thank him for telling her. It wasn’t merely denial about the depth of the situation at her mill, although she was stubbornly refusing to believe the danger was real. He could see she was willing to admit to his concerns in theory but not in practice. She truly couldn’t imagine someone going to such extraordinary lengths.
The denial didn’t stop there. She hadn’t told him because she didn’t trust him, not merely as her investigator, but as her lover. That stung worse than anything else. She had been willing to share the intimacies of her body with him, but not her mind and for the first time, perhaps ever, that bothered him. When it came to Jenna Priess, physical intimacy wasn’t enough.
It was not the sort of realization one wanted to have at such a moment, but there it was anyway, rearing its untimely head. The moment stretched. She glared at him, angry and fierce like a wounded bear cornered, and he stood there, hungering for her, wanting nothing more than to take her in his arms and convince her he was worth her trust. He wouldn’t get the rest of the story, her story, from her without it. And there was more. One expected complications from the London belles. One did not expect complications from a mill owner’s daughter in the wilds of Cumbria.
He was certain these revelations he’d dragged from her tonight were the tip of her proverbial iceberg. If anyone knew ice, real or otherwise, it was him, and if anyone knew how to read people, it was him. Jenna Priess was definitely an iceberg of untold depths. The other thing he knew about ice with a certainty was that it melted and a sixth sense told him that Jenna was about to break. Her ferocity, her anger masked a greater pain. He knew all about greater pain. What was hers? It was something that went beyond Davenport, beyond the mill. As important as they were, he was willing to bet they were merely symptoms.
If he could just touch her… Hayden held his arms out to his side in a gesture of neutrality and circled the table much like one approached a skittish horse, and asked for the only thing that came to heart, the one thing that could make a difference. It was the one thing he wanted above all else in that moment. “Jenna, tell me. Trust me.”
“Don’t do that.” Jenna put up a hand as if she could ward off his words. “Don’t make this about something other than business. You’re always shifting the focus to the personal.”
“Why not? We’ve become personal.” Hayden challenged gently. The time for bristling anger was passing with the lateness of the hour.
“Because nothing can come of it.” Jenna replied, careful to keep the distance between them. Hayden smiled. He was right, she was about to break. Her mind was testing the possibility this very minute. She knew it too, that if he could just touch her, just wrap her in his arms, he would have her remaining secrets.
“What exactly do you want to come of it?” Hayden asked softly. That was an unfair question with an unfair answer. He wasn’t sure he would know how to answer if it had been asked of him and he certainly didn’t know if he could live up to any answer Jenna might give. You are a risk-taker by trade, a nomad by necessity. That reminder should be his touchstone not the desire to protect, please and pleasure the chestnut-haired beauty facing him with emerald daggers in her eyes.
“How can you even ask that?” Jenna’s eyes narrowed. She was trying so hard to defend herself with her questions, never daring to expose the least of her vulnerabilities.
He was the risk-taker. It would have to come from him first. He would have to break the ice, so to speak. He faced her squarely. “I’ll tell you what I want, Jenna, and you can do with it what you will. I want you, body, soul and secrets, for however long that might be.”
Her green eyes went soft. He could almost hear the ice crack.
“My father is dying, Hayden.” Yes, definitely cracking if not cleaved right through with a comment like that.
Silently, they took up their seats again, together on the settee, this time, hands interlocked. “He seemed well enough tonight.” Hayden began. “Frail, but not on death’s door. What does a doctor say?”
“That it’s up to him. There is nothing more medicine can do.”
Hayden nodded. He understood better than she knew how alluring death could look, how appealing the decision to simply give up. If it hadn’t been for Logan, he’d have walked that path all the way to the River Styx. He’d failed his family. There’d been no reason to continue.
“It’s my mother,” Jenna explained. “Ever since she passed, he’s been slipping away from us.” Perhaps the best reason of all to let go, Hayden thought. Love and death combined were two power entities.
“Your father must have loved her very much.”
“She was his life.” Those four words revealed much. She worried, Hayden mused, that she and her brother weren’t enough to pull him back any longer. They had held him to this life this long, but how much longer? Everyone needed a reason to stay, to go.
“Saving the mill won’t necessarily save him.” Hayden voiced the thought out loud. He’d thought as much that night she’d come to him in the taproom willing to strike a deal for his services.
“Maybe it gives him a reason to get out of bed. The mill, what he stands for in regards to workers’ rights, those things are his legacy, what he’s devoted his life to.”
Hayden cocked his head, considering. “Do you really think so? I think you underestimate your place in his heart. The man I saw tonight, has devoted his life to you and to Daniel. I watched his eyes when he looked at each of you.” And it had hurt to do so. His father had once looked at him that way, but that was another lifetime ago. It had been ages since anyone had looked at him with selfless love in their eyes, as if by simply being, he was enough just as he was. “He got out of bed tonight, give him a reason to get up tomorrow, and the next day and the next and see what happens, Jenna.”
“He can’t go back to work.” Jenna protested.
“No, he can’t. It’s much too soon, give it time. In the meanwhile, we’ll work to bring Davenport to justice.” This was promising headway. One secret down, her father may or may not be dying. He understood this. Jenna wanted to save the mill for her father, wanted to protect his reputation, wanted her father to get well, to prove to herself that she was enough, the ageless need of a child for parental approval. He understood too that she hadn’t told him about her father because she’d wanted to protect her father, she didn’t want to expose his weakness or hers. Now, only one question remained and he asked it with deadly quiet.
“And the other man who broke who your heart, Jenna? Tell me about him.”
Chapter Eighteen
Jenna stiffened. She might as well be sitting there naked. He’d all but stripped her bare with those blue eyes that saw everything. Never mind that he’d done it again — veered into the very personal when theirs was supposed to be a very professional relationship defined by the performance of one single job: find her missing workers. “What makes you think there’s a man involved?”
“In my experience, skepticism is usually a learned trait.” His finger drew tiny circles on the back of her hand, sending delightful shivers down her spine.
“And seduction? Is that learned too or does that come naturally?” Jenna replied drily. It wasn’t fair that she had to give up her secrets without any of his in return. “Perhaps seduction is a man’s equivalent to a woman’s skepticism.” Or it’s antidote, which seemed more likely.
Seduction was the one route around a cynic’s resistance as he had so ably proven to her. Even with her armor, she’d been unable to resist him. The best resistance she could muster was to merely redefine the rules for herself; to acknowledge the limits of what this relationship could be. Even then with that understanding in place, those rules were hard pressed to hold the fort o
f her heart. She’d spent far too much time tonight watching him with her family and imagining the impossible.
“Well, maybe it is,” Hayden drawled and gave her a lazy smile that made her stomach flip. She liked him best in these quiet moments when he seemed to be himself. “So, who was the man who gave you this rather formidable armor?”
“Armor is it?” she parried with a coy smile of her own and a tilt of her head, more interested in what Hayden’s hand was doing to hers than in trotting out the sins of Adam Grantham.
Hayden raised her hand to his lips, palm up, and kissed it. “Oh yes, it’s definitely armor. You are reluctant to trust me because you did trust him and he wasn’t worthy of it. That experience has become your shield.” His eyes met hers over her hand. That look, those words, threatened to shatter the core of her. Had she ever been seen so thoroughly? And to think that it was an ice racer, a self-confessed rake and roamer, who understood her, made the accomplishment the height of irony. This was not a man she could keep. She might as well tell him. He guessed it all anyway, at least the parts that mattered.
“If you must know,” she began, keeping her tone light, not wanting to let the bitterness seep in. “His name was Adam Grantham, second son of a baron. It was a whirlwind of a courtship and he promised to marry me.”
“He broke his promise?” Hayden interjected, his fingers still moving over her hand. Touching helped. It was shockingly easy to tell him anything when he was touching her.
Jenna shook her head. “No, he would have kept that promise. I was the one who broke it.” Hayden’s face registered surprise and she gave a small laugh of victory. “You didn’t expect that, did you? At last, there’s something the great Hayden Islington has not already divined.”
She looked down at their hands and drew a breath. “I am sure to this day that he would have married me but I could not marry him. While he was happy to promise me marriage, he did not pledge me his fidelity. At the time, I had not even thought to ask for it. I had assumed… ” Her voice trailed off in implication. She’d been horribly naïve to think marriage, love, and fidelity went hand in hand, interchangeably synonymous with one another. “Two weeks after the engagement, I caught him with a pretty barmaid.”
Hayden sucked in his breath and made a noise. “Ouch.”
Jenna shrugged. “It could have been worse. He almost got away with it. One more week and the banns would have been completed. We would have wed and it would have been too late. It was far better to find out when I did. I have no regrets.” As she said the words, she realized that she meant them. In theory, she knew she was better off without the blackguard Grantham, but the full practical import had been harder to accept — to be alone, to be wary because she was wealthy, to have to believe that a man would never love her on her own merits. There would always be the money.
It was a bitter cup to accept, but tonight, sitting with Hayden, the bitterness was absent. Life was happier with Hayden. He didn’t care about the money. He would be moving on. She could live in the moment with him although she feared she would pay for that bliss later. Losing him was going to hurt.
“I’m sorry.” Hayden said softly.
She gave a small smile. “I’m not. Adam Grantham was the last piece I needed to really grow up, I think. It was a hard lesson, but hard lessons are often the most necessary.” Their heads were close together, foreheads nearly touching. She could smell the lingering scents of his evening toilette; the vanilla and sandalwood of his cologne mingled with the fresh starch of his linen.
Hayden’s lips hovered over hers and she drew a breath, anticipating their brush against hers. “What lesson did you learn, Jenna?” he whispered.
“That Hobbes is right. Life is brutish and short,” she quoted. “But that a careful woman can steal her pleasure.”
“As can a careful man.” He grinned just before his mouth captured hers. It was a bold move, an ironic move considering they’d just spoken of caution and the door to the sitting room remained open. Andrews might choose to check on them at any point. She sank into his kiss, her hand coming up to cradle his jaw, her mouth opening to drink of him. She would ponder the revelation later. She had told him her secrets, but he’d given away his without words. Seduction was his caution. He happened to you before you happened to him. Jenna wondered who had taught him that lesson. But for now, it was enough to know.
Hayden broke the kiss first, his hand tangled in the hair gathered at the back of her neck. His voice was a hoarse whisper and his eyes were dark with desire. “Do you want to come back to the inn with me? We can use the backstairs, no one will notice.”
“Yes, but I can’t.” Daniel might still be up, a late-retiring servant might notice. Certainly Andrews was awake. She couldn’t risk it. The last time, she’d given a plausible excuse for being out and she’d been lucky. She’d been able to sneak back in before the house had stirred for the morning.
“Then I should go. I want more than kisses from you tonight.” He stood and gave a boyish smile, almost awkward. “It’s easy to play the gentleman, but it’s a lot harder to be one.” A surreptitious glance just below his waist, told her he meant that in all ways. She smiled at the innuendo and rose with him.
Jenna stretched on tiptoes to reach his cheek with a kiss. “You’re an oak, Hayden.” He seized her about the waist and held her close, his eyes merry.
“And mahogany, maple, elm, larch.” His brow gave a delightful furrow as he reviewed his list. “Well, maybe not larch.”
“Why is that?” She knew she was goading him, wanting to know what audacious thing he’d say next.
He gave a wicked smile and bent close to her ear, making it clear he wouldn’t disappoint. “Larch isn’t considered a hard wood. It’s coniferous. A hard wood,” he drawled, “is most fittingly, an angiosperm.”
She laughed. “You have the naughtiest of minds.”
“No, the pines do.” he said with such abject seriousness she couldn’t hold the laughter back. Neither could he. Soon, they were laughing uncontrollably. Jenna had to sit down and cover her mouth with her hand. Hayden steadied himself against a chair. All it took was a single look his direction and she started again. A lock of Hayden’s thick hair fell errantly in his face making him look entirely rakish and entirely loveable. That sobered her. If she had doubted it before, there was no doubting it now. Rules and acknowledged limits aside, she was in trouble.
Hayden mastered himself, but just barely. The way his mouth kept twitching into a smile, she thought it likely he would break out in laughter again at any moment. “On that note, I will take my leave.” He did manage to remain serious long enough to say reassuringly, “Don’t worry. Your father will choose to live and we will find your missing workers.” He gave her a little bow. “Thank you for a lovely evening. I enjoyed meeting your family, truly.”
Yes. It was official. She was definitely in trouble. All the rules in the world weren’t going to save her now.
That premonition became more apparent in the days that followed. Hayden’s presence manifested in her life in little insidious ways that had him at her side. He walked her to the mill, sat with her in the office or strode the grounds while he waited for her to finish her work. He came for dinner, almost nightly, a ritual that started under the guise of bringing Daniel home from the lake where her brother was spending his free afternoons, having taken Hayden up on the invitation. Her father dined with them and afterwards Hayden would coax him into a game of chess. She and Hayden found time to steal away on their own, taking refuge in his room at the inn in the afternoons when all was quiet.
She came to treasure those afternoons; their love-making slow and languorous with no need to rush, the precious time afterwards where she lay in his arms and listened to his stories growing up outside of York. Those stories gave her a sense of the boy he’d been, but she began to recognize them too as a smokescreen for the man he’d become. He didn’t talk of his recent past.
“I put the whole collection of leaves up
in my room in a shadow box, each one neatly tacked and labeled.” Hayden concluded with a chuckle, his arm wrapped about her where she lay at his side. “I don’t think I’ve told anyone that story for ages.”
“So that’s how you know so much about hard woods. Leaves, ice. You’re a veritable cornucopia of scientific knowledge. I’m impressed.” Jenna teased, drawing a circle on his chest. She’d not originally taken him for a scholar. She didn’t know many scholars who were also carefree like him, who took risks, who drank fully of real life instead of burying themselves in the hypothetical lives of their books.
She sighed and shifted against him. Life was simple here in this room with just Hayden, a bed, a fire and stories to tell.
Hayden gave an awkward smile. “I’ve always liked science. I like knowing how things work. I like to know ‘why.’?”
“Is that why you became an investigator?” She asked the question knowing how bold it was. It was just one step away from the logical follow up question: why did you quit?
“I suppose it was.” Hayden said casually as if he’d never given it any thought. Too casually. She was on to something he didn’t want to reveal. “There is satisfaction in solving a mystery and knowing that it has helped someone. I think it was the idea of helping people that appealed to me as well.”
That, she could believe. Underneath the flash of his celebrity image and the sharp, audacious wit, was a kind man, a generous man. He made no attempt to hide it, but it was a trait often overshadowed by other traits. He gave of his time to those who asked for it, he’d shown real concern for her father and for Daniel and she sensed in him a deep-seated vulnerability. He wanted to be liked. “Why did you leave it?”
Reckless Rakes - Hayden Islington Page 16
