She kissed him, her lips pressing to his and her tongue moving against his in the way he’d only just shown her. Unable to resist the lure of her, Ian let his hands drift down to the satiny skin of her thighs, then upward until he touched the very center of her. At her gasp, he reversed their kiss, his tongue sliding into her mouth, tangling with hers for supremacy even as he explored the soft, damp folds at the juncture of her thighs. With each stroke of his fingers over her heated flesh, she shuddered and gasped. Her muscles drawing tighter, the tension gathering in her like a storm. With his thumb, he circled the small bud that was the seat of her pleasure, each pass drawing nearer and nearer until he brushed it directly, once, twice, and then she shattered against him. He felt the quaking of her thighs against his own, the quivering of her belly and the ragged breathing that sounded as if she’d just run a race. She collapsed against him, her face pressed to his shoulder and her whole body limp with pleasure. But he wasn’t done yet. There was one more thing that he desired.
Easing her off him and onto the settee, he slid down until he could kneel between her parted thighs. Her gaze locked on him, heavy lidded, satisfied and yet still curious.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I told you that the next time I kissed you it wouldn’t be your hand,” he said. “But I don’t mean to stop at just your lips.”
For all her boasts of knowledge, what he proposed was not something she was familiar with. But anticipation coiled within her regardless. She wanted to experience everything with him that she could, no matter how unfamiliar or how impossible it seemed. With her body still humming from the pleasure he’d already given her, Hyacinth simply gave herself up to him and allowed him to guide her.
The first touch of his mouth to her sensitive skin, that impossibly intimate kiss, left her gasping. As that kiss deepened, she could do nothing but sob brokenly, even as she bit her lip to stifle the sound. It was a sensation like no other, like liquid fire consuming her, spreading outward from those points of contact until she was utterly lost to it. Even as she thought it, tension coiled inside her. Different from before, but powerful and compelling. She knew what lay beyond that now, knew precisely what preceded the wave of pleasure that would swamp her entirely. To that end, she strained toward him, her hips arching upward to meet his caress, to feel the insistent heat of his mouth on her, his tongue sweeping over that small bit of flesh that could lead to ecstasy.
And then she was flying with it, her body contracting rhythmically with her release. It was more intense than before and seemed to go on forever, until she could do nothing but gasp for breath and mutter incoherently as she shook with the power of it. Through it all, he never stopped touching her. He pressed hot kisses to her thighs, to the soft skin of her abdomen and then slowly worked his way back up to her breasts and then her lips. The taste of herself on his mouth was unexpectedly erotic. And as he lay there, pressed against her intimately, she could feel the hardness of him. Even with all the pleasure she had received, she yearned for more. She longed to feel him inside her and to know what it meant to be completely possessed by him.
“Show me how to please you,” she whispered. “Let me give to you what you have given me.”
He shook his head. “I haven’t the strength of will to resist you. If you touch me now, Hyacinth, I would take this farther than either of us can risk letting it go.”
“Are you certain the risk is too great? I’m willing to take it if you are.”
He kissed her gently, pressing his forehead to hers. His breathing was as ragged as hers, as he replied. “Just let me hold you. Let me pretend, for the moment at least, that we have all the time in the world.”
Chapter Eleven
Ian was in the breakfast room when Hyacinth entered. She crossed to the sideboard and began filling a plate for herself. She was ravenous. Recalling their exertions of the evening before, it was little wonder. Glancing over her shoulder at him, she saw that he was watching her. There was hunger in his gaze, but more than that there was knowing. There was not an inch of her he had not seen without the benefit of clothing. She’d been naked and spread out before him like a feast. And he had feasted. Just thinking of it made her shiver. If there was any hope of maintaining some kind of propriety between them, at least outwardly when they might be observed by others, she’d need to get a better hold on her response to him.
“Good morning, my lord,” she said, intentionally using his title.
“Good morning… Miss Collier,” he said. There was a hint of a smile in his voice, as if he knew precisely what she was about.
A blush crept up her neck, stealing into her cheeks and she gave him a quelling look. As she seated herself at the breakfast table with a cup of tea and her laden plate, she said quietly, “For someone who insisted we not go too far in our—” She broke off, uncertain what word to use.
“Lovemaking? Sinful explorations? Erotic endeavors?” he supplied in a quiet, heated whisper.
Heaven help her, but she wanted him again. She wanted his hands, his mouth, she wanted him to take her fully and make her his. And if he’d offered to do so right there on the breakfast table, she likely would not have protested. “You’re not really being helpful,” she replied, noting that her voice sounded breathless and not at all discouraging.
“I like seeing you blush,” he answered wickedly. “And recalling how your skin flushed the same when I held you in my arms last night.”
“For someone who doesn’t wish to take unnecessary risks,” Hyacinth pointed out, “you’re being very bold this morning.”
“There is no one else here to see,” he said. “All the servants are in the hall and you and I are alone… as alone as we can be during daylight hours in this house.”
She needed to change the subject. Or she would do something reckless, foolish and likely irrevocable. “In that case,” Hyacinth said, sipping her tea, “there are other things we should speak of. What do you mean to do about Mrs. Lee and William?”
Ian sat back, pushing his plate away as if the very mention of them had spoiled his appetite. “I will ask them to leave, but first I will require more proof. It isn’t just sending them away… if I am to ever be free of this, I need them to admit that Annabel is dead, and that she is so by her own doing and not mine.”
“Then we will get proof,” she said quietly. “Whatever it takes.”
Ian looked up at her then and his expression hardened. “I will get proof. I will do it, Hyacinth, not we. You will stay away from them as much as possible. You said yourself that you thought he had struck his mother. Any man who would do such a thing is not one to be trifled with, Hyacinth. Swear to me that you will not go near them!”
“Ian—”
He leaned in until they were nearly nose to nose. “I will pack you into a carriage and send you away, though it is the last thing I want to do. I will not risk something happening to you… I will not have another woman’s death on my conscience!”
“You did not kill Annabel,” she protested. He was being impossible about the entire thing.
“No, I didn’t. But I didn’t save her either. Whatever happens with Mrs. Lee and William, I do share some of the blame for her demise,” he admitted. “I can live with that. But if I failed you in the same way, Hyacinth, I could not bear it. So I would have your promise.”
“I don’t want to promise you that,” she said. “I want to help you.”
“Then let me keep you safe,” he urged her. “I beg of you, Hyacinth, step away from this and let me deal with it now.”
He was being unreasonable and she knew that no matter what she said, he would not relent. “Fine. I promise not to go near them.” It was intentionally vague, and gave her significant room to maneuver so long as she was careful.
He eyed her suspiciously. “That was much less argument than I expected.”
“I don’t want to argue with you… but you have to promise me something now.”
“What?” he asked.
“That tonight, you will come to room and that we will do all the things that we did not do last night,” she said. “I don’t care about the risk. It’s worth it to me.”
“Hyacinth—”
“You mean to petition the House of Lords, do you not?” she demanded.
“I do. In fact, I’ve received a notice from my solicitor. He’s meeting me at the inn in the village. His letter didn’t go into detail, but he indicated he has some news for me. I didn’t want to bring him here and risk being overheard,” he admitted.
“How long will you be gone?”
He sighed again. “I should return by late afternoon, if not, not long after. Assuming this isn’t something that would require my immediate attention elsewhere.”
“Please be careful,” Hyacinth said. “I cannot help but feel the closer you become to freeing yourself from their influence, the more dangerous they will become.”
“You will do the same,” he said as he rose from his chair. “If I hope to return by this afternoon, then I should go now. If I should have to go on ahead to another destination, I will send word.”
“And a marker for the debt you owe me?” she asked, rather boldly. “After all, you have promised.”
“I have, indeed,” he said, his gaze scorching as it traveled over her once more. “And I am most eager to pay that debt.”
He moved past her, his hand touching her shoulder briefly. It was all they dared when they could be easily observed. But her skin burned in the wake of his touch and she ached to call him back as he left the room. But, she reminded herself, it was an opportunity, and for it to work, she would need Lady Arabella’s assistance. Finishing her breakfast quickly, she climbed the stairs with every intention of waking the older woman up.
But as she reached Lady Arabella’s room, she heard voices inside. Knocking softly, she entered and found both Lady Arabella and Lady Phyllida deep in conversation. When they saw her, they broke apart guiltily.
“We weren’t doing anything,” Lady Arabella said.
“You can stop matchmaking,” Hyacinth said.
“Do you truly have no interest in one another?” Lady Arabella demanded.
Hyacinth rolled her eyes. “You can stop matchmaking because you’ve succeeded. Lord Dumbarton is on his way to Carlisle to confer with his solicitor. And I have very urgent matters to discuss… I need your help, Lady Arabella.”
The older woman’s eyes widened almost comically. “I do feel I have helped you quite enough if the match was successful.”
“Not entirely successful… there is the little matter of Lord Dumbarton’s missing and presumed dead wife,” Hyacinth pointed out. “And that is what I need help with. I need to search Mrs. Lee’s and William’s rooms… and for that I need you to get them out of the house.”
“How on earth are we to do that?” Lady Phyllida demanded. “They cannot abide any of us. Why would they ever consent to spend time in our company?”
“Because we will tell them that Lord Dumbarton has taken Hyacinth and means to elope to Gretna Green with her,” Lady Arabella said. “It should certainly spur them to action.”
“You are ingenious… wicked but ingenious,” Hyacinth remarked. “I’ll even write a note for you to show them!”
“Now who is wickedly ingenious?” Lady Arabella asked with a cackle.
Chapter Twelve
Ian entered the taproom of the small inn and peered into the dimly-lit corners. He found his solicitor near the back of the room, standing at the entrance to the inn’s only private parlor. He could see another man sitting inside it, his back to the taproom as if he did not wish to be recognized. Frowning, Ian walked toward them and was ushered inside. As his solicitor closed the door, the little man spoke, “My lord, I have excellent news… or rather my associate does. I hired a private inquiry agent to see what could be discovered about your late wife, your mother-in-law and your brother-in-law. Mr. Ettinger has uncovered a wealth of very damning information.”
“Such as?” Ian demanded.
The other man turned then, revealing a face that was craggy and scarred. He looked more like a criminal than an investigator. “For starters, your lordship, you’re not legally married. Your wife’s name is Annabel Lee… but that is her given name and her middle name. Her surname, before she and her relatives chose to divest themselves of it, was Ogden. Does that ring any bells?” He spoke well enough, though there was a hint of the rookeries in it.
“None that I’m aware of, Mr. Ettinger,” Ian answered. “So Annabel lied on the registry?”
“She did, indeed, just as she did to her husband before you… a once-wealthy merchant in Liverpool by the name of Carstairs.”
“Once-wealthy?” Ian asked. “I’m assuming that the Ogdens had something to do with his turn of fortune?”
“That’s the way of it with them,” Ettinger said with a soft laugh. “They all descended upon him like locusts. Charged up accounts all over town, gambled and used his name on the markers. They broke the man and then fled into the night. He wasn’t the first, either. But you, my lord, you’ve been the last. And that tells me the girl is truly gone.”
“Well, I didn’t kill her,” Ian protested.
“Never said you did,” Ettinger said and turned back toward the fire, heedless of his rudeness.
“Quite right, my lord, they fleeced him good, and then vacated. He died not long after, taking his own life,” the solicitor added. “They bled him dry paying debts… but not all of them were debts. Some were false and the money filtered into an account to draw interest and finance their next scheme. They’ve amassed a small fortune doing so.”
“That makes no sense. Hyacinth overheard William warning Mrs. Lee—Mrs. Ogden, I should say—about the money lenders and what would happen to them if they went back to London.”
“They’re mixed up in the underworld, my lord, but not because they owe money to them. It’s something far worse than that,” the solicitor offered, clearly hedging and unwilling to give voice to what he meant to say.
Ian was struggling to wrap his head around so many things. “If that’s true, and they’re in deep with underworld players from London, why was Annabel so keen to go there?”
Ettinger turned back to him then. “When she was in London, looking for another mark—that would be you, my lord—she met someone else, too. Someone she took quite a liking to and who took an equal liking to her. The Hound of Whitehall. He’s a notorious gangster. Not just part of the London Underworld. He is the London Underworld.”
“And when she returned to London after we were married, she resumed the affair?” Ian asked. It had wounded his pride at the time, but not his heart. His infatuation with Annabel had long since ended by then.
“Aye, she did. And it was a point of bitterness between her and William,” Ettinger explained.
“Why is that precisely?”
Mr. Mumson, the solicitor, interjected then, “There are many reasons, my lord. Her emotional involvement with a powerful and well-connected individual threatened the scam they had been running for so many years… and that had been the primary avenue of support for the three of them.”
Christ, it got more convoluted with every bit of information revealed. “So what now?”
“Now, the Hound wants to know what happened to the woman he loved. I didn’t find your Mr. Mumson by accident, my lord. I was sent here to get at the truth by the Hound himself and I have,” Ettinger replied.
“And what is that truth, Mr. Ettinger?”
The solicitor cleared his throat. “About that… did you know that William was here when Annabel vanished?”
“They didn’t arrive until months after,” Ian insisted. “Trust me, the day is well marked in my memory.”
“They didn’t, my lord,” Ettinger chimed in. “But he did. I found the carriage he hired to bring him up… same one what took him back to London afterward. See the thing is, Annabel was cutting him off. Him and her mother. She had sent them a lette
r that she meant to leave you and take up with the Hound and he was having none of it.”
“You think William had something to do with her death,” Ian surmised.
“I know he did, my lord. When he got back into the carriage to go back to London, the driver said he was a white as a sheet and kept muttering under his breath that he hadn’t meant to do it. Kept at it. Cried and wept like a babe. They fought, argued bitterly… because he wanted to work for the Hound. He wanted to be cut in on the gaming hells and brothels and she refused him.”
“This all sounds like conjecture,” Ian pointed out.
“It is. Unless we can get him to confess,” Ettinger replied.
“And who will he confess to?”
Ettinger grinned at that. “I’m here on a private inquiry matter, my lord. But I’m still a Bow Street Runner by trade. If I hear his confession, it’s as good as if he says it in the court of law. I’ve likely got enough evidence to take him in for it anyway… but I’m not here to please the courts. I’m here on the behalf of someone else.”
“The Hound,” Ian stated. It wasn’t a question. “What is your relationship with this man, Mr. Ettinger, when he is clearly on one side of the law and you are supposed to be on the other?”
“We go back a long time. And in this instance, we’re on the same side. Bringing in a confidence man and a murderer. Doesn’t matter who asked me to do it, now does it?” Ettinger asked.
“No, it does not. But if the William is the murderer,” Ian said and rose to his feet, “he’s alone in the house with Hyacinth, my mother and Lady Arabella.”
“I’ve a carriage outside,” Mumson said.
“I’ll go ahead on horseback. The two of you come as quickly as possible,” Ian said and immediately turned to leave. He had a terrible, sinking feeling and he needed to get to her at once.
Chapter Thirteen
Hyacinth slipped into Mrs. Lee’s chamber first. Peg had shown her how to open the secret panels. Easing into the woman’s room, she rifled through things quickly. Other than a secret stash of gin, she found nothing of note. The suite she shared with her son, their chambers separated by a sitting room, was proving a terrible disappointment. Every drawer and cabinet that was searched left her with nothing.
The Midnight Hour: All-Hallows’ Brides Page 52
