Lyndhurst paused in his restless pacing to glare down at Blaize. “I suggest that in public at least we still behave as bitter rivals for the hand of the fair Lady Aurelia. If the dowager thinks us divided, then she’ll behave with less circumspection. She could even try to set us against each other. But we must not fail to communicate in private. Agreed?”
D’Argento accepted immediately.
“And I want her brother,” Lyndhurst continued. “Her mother is a sorceress or an immortal, that’s for sure, even if we don’t know what she is. Do we believe her brother escaped? He’s five years older than Aurelia. You know what age that makes him.”
D’Argento’s answer dropped into the silence like a stone in a pond. “Thirty.” The age that the reborn Olympians would be, give a year or two. D’Argento nodded. “I’ll find him. That’s what I do best. He went abroad, did he not? Then I leave in the morning. He is a key to this puzzle and I want him.”
Blaize nodded. “I will woo Aurelia properly and while I’m doing so, you may trace her brother. I want him found, d’Argento.”
“Never fear, he won’t escape me.”
“And I’m a spare foot, I suppose?” Lyndhurst said sarcastically. “I have no part in your well-oiled plan?”
“On the contrary,” Blaize said. “I’m a spy in the camp. I need support.” By describing it in military terms, perhaps he could win Lyndhurst over. The man would be a considerable asset. They’d never see eye to eye—Lyndhurst’s love of order and organisation was the exact opposite of Blaize. He ruled chaos.
Aurelia spelled order and calm. She was the anchor to his madness. He needed her.
Spell or not, the feelings he had for her were more real than anything he’d experienced for a long time. He didn’t want to give that up. He wouldn’t, nor would he rest until he had Aurelia in his protection. He wanted her under his roof.
A small touch of the gentleman still remained in him. He called on that part now to save him and help him in his need. If he voiced his desire, Lyndhurst would go against him, he knew that. D’Argento might do so, if he believed that Aurelia was a part of the conspiracy to trap immortals in the net of desire and passion.
For her he would defy the world, and damn the consequences. If that made him a fool, so be it.
Chapter Five
“We will attend Lady Dunbar’s rout tonight,” the Duchess of Kentmere said on the morning of the duel. She was buttering a slice of toast. “After the theatre with Lyndhurst, of course.”
Aurelia eyed her plate with disfavour. Her food appeared to glare back at her, especially the egg, which gleamed up as if challenging her to cut into it. As usual, a footman had filled the plate at her mother’s direction. Aurelia had allowed it, since she had other battles to fight, but this morning she’d let it go to waste.
“Eat up, you’ll need your strength.” Her mother beckoned for a servant to fill her coffee cup. The footman picked up the pot that stood next to the cup and did as he was bid.
“I’m not hungry this morning.” Aurelia attempted the egg, more out of spite than anything else, but gave up when she pierced it and the yolk ran out, pouring over the ham and tomatoes like yellow blood.
Her stomach turned over and she pushed the plate away. She had spent the night pacing the floor of her room, desperate to go to Blaize. He was fighting a soldier, a man who killed. What chance did he have?
The dowager paused in her consumption of her usual hearty meal. “Are you not feeling well?”
Aurelia thought of saying yes, but her mother would have her back in bed, drinking noxious substances in the guise of medicine and being bled by some barber-surgeon with a rusty knife. It had happened before. “No, just not hungry.” She retained what dignity she could.
“Then drink your morning draught.”
With distaste, she picked up the glass of green-tinged, milky fluid. Her mother insisted she drank a glassful with breakfast for her health. It was a small price to pay. It tasted disgusting, but anything that contained chopped green cabbage would not feature highly in her preference for food.
The green drink, prepared by the cook with a grumbling and grudging acquiescence, appeared at the breakfast table every morning. She drank it rather than put her mother out, reserving her battles for when she really needed them. Since her mother had a glass too, Aurelia considered it only fair to share the pain.
Her mother waved the footman out of the room. Oh hell, a private lecture.
Aurelia was wrong. “If this is about Lyndhurst and Stretton, don’t concern yourself,” her mother said. “Even if Lyndhurst kills Stretton, he’ll no doubt escape opprobrium. Don’t be so foolish, girl. Your lover will come back to you. We’ll see him tonight.”
They were thinking of different people. All Aurelia’s desperate anxiety lay with Blaize. He was a man of fashion. True, he’d learned to fence, that was what gentlemen did, but fighting in anger? She was so sure. He’d shown her care, and exquisite loving, but she hadn’t seen any proof of a fighting temperament. On the other hand, Lyndhurst was every inch the soldier.
She was terrified.
And angry with herself for caring so much. She should never have allowed anyone to get to her to that extent, much less an accredited rake like Lord Stretton. Everyone told her he was careless with his lovers, arrogant and unfeeling. Once he turned his back, he never returned. She knew all that and yet she couldn’t force herself away.
Her yearning went on, whatever she did. If she had him, would it lessen? She feared not. It might ease the pain, but nothing else. It had only grown worse. “Why should I care?” she said, doing her best to appear indifferent. “They aren’t fighting over me.”
“We both know the answer to that.” Shaking back her ruffles, the dowager propped both elbows on the table. “They are. The reason they used was to spare your blushes. I’ve asked Lyndhurst here after he’s done, to let society know that we approve and we do not condemn him for his recklessness.”
Aurelia shuddered at the words. She forced a deep breath to steady herself. But her mother hadn’t finished.
“While I have you to myself, I need to tell you that I have another requirement for you.” The dowager lifted her head and stared down her nose at her daughter. “You are dealing with Stretton the wrong way. You’re greeting him with pleasure and letting him have his way in all things. If he survives this morning’s encounter, you are to tantalize him. Enchant him. Draw away a little. If he visits, you are not always at home. If you meet at a public place, you are not to dance with him or give him any other sign of your favour. He will return, never fear. If you show him too much favour, he will draw away. Hook him in. Do you understand?”
Enough. She would not bow down to that or even pretend to. Since an early age Aurelia had remembered the Aesop’s fable about oak trees breaking under high winds and reeds bending, so they survived another way. All her life she’d been that reed, but sometimes the oak tree came into its own. This was such a time.
Her heart in her throat, she answered her parent. “Mama, if he asks me to dance, I will dance. If he wants to walk with me, I will do so. I like him. I trust you know I’m not so foolish as to show him too much favour in public.” Only in private.
That awful pressure in her head, a precursor of one of her headaches, appeared from nowhere. But she knew what it was, had known for years now. Her mother caused them. At first she hadn’t believed it, but when she’d reckoned the circumstances and the timing of her headaches, she could come to no other conclusion. Her mother was somehow introducing the pain.
The power they never spoke of but which infused her every waking moment reared its head once more. At first she’d assumed she was mad, but now she knew better.
If she could escape from that, she’d do anything. And Blaize was her way out.
Ignoring her headache, Aurelia went through her day and then had dinner at home with twenty other people. After that, they attended the theatre, where Lyndhurst waited for them as if nothing had h
appened that morning. He was urbane, neatly attired, totally in control of himself. By then she’d heard more about the duel. Gossips stopped for no one, and she didn’t have to try to hear it.
They’d fought, they’d both been hurt. So she found it a relief to see Lyndhurst seemingly well. “Are you recovered, sir?” She didn’t care, because he was obviously not badly hurt. She only wanted to know about Blaize.
He covered her hand with his, then laid it on his arm so he could escort her into his theatre box. “A mere scratch, my dear. Nothing to concern yourself about. Besides, I wouldn’t have missed this for the world. Your company makes everything better.”
“Truly I’m pleased to see you so well.”
“Society makes much of little. They call sword practice a duel.” He laughed, and it sounded carefree enough.
He guided her to a seat at the front of the box. The great chandelier blazed over an audience that contained the great and the good—and the wicked. In the pits, men conversed, their quizzing glasses busy scanning everywhere but the stage, women in the boxes and galleries, and up above, raucous laughter and yells from the people in the cheap seats. Aurelia had never been that high and wondered if it would make her dizzy if she tried. Not that she’d ever have the chance. People thought that the rich were always powerful, that they could do whatever they chose, but they could not. If anything, they were more restricted, especially people like her—wealthy, unmarried young women. So well-guarded she could do nothing she chose, her will not her own.
She wanted Blaize, not Lyndhurst. Her small act of defiance that morning would start the road to gaining her ambition. She could not fail. Would not.
At the first interval, she allowed him to take her aside. Her mother didn’t prevent it, accepting Lyndhurst’s excuse of taking Aurelia outside for a breath of fresh air, and Aurelia saw it as a chance to disabuse Lyndhurst.
“Madam, I have admired you for some time now. I will never cease to do so.” Although he spoke quietly, sincerity pulsed in his voice. Was he about to propose? Not here, surely. She must allow him to continue. “It has been borne upon me that your sentiments might reside elsewhere. Is this true?”
She gazed into the face of the man before her. Handsome, powerful and kind, he was all she’d imagined she’d want in a husband. Until she’d met Blaize. “Sir, I’m sorry, but I fear—but I cannot speak.” Blaize might have made love to her, but he hadn’t spoken, hadn’t sought her hand.
“I understand.” He pressed her hand warmly. “But I will say this. If you ever need a friend, come to me. I will help you, whatever it costs me and however my personal feelings might be. I will prove your friend.”
To have this honourable man as a friend would be more than she could hope. “Thank you.”
“Promise me,” he said insistently.
Surprised at his fervency, she assured him, “Of course. Thank you, sir. I do wish you all the good fortune in the world.”
“Ah, if only it could be different.” He sounded almost cheerful. “I will not retire from the lists, you understand, not until all is lost, but I am some way off that point.” His voice lightened. “However, I have a small surprise for you. Someone wishes to see you. I will stroll around the perimeter and return.”
He opened a door to their left. It led to an intimate room set with a tray of refreshments and two couches. And the one man she wanted to see most in the world.
Blaize hardly waited for the door to shut before he pulled Aurelia into his arms and kissed her. She returned his embrace, her being sinking into him in a way she was beginning to accept would be normal where he was concerned. He slipped his tongue into her mouth, touched hers in greeting, and she was lost. He tasted her with leisurely patience and she returned his caresses, with less patience.
“Blaize, I thought he would kill you!” she sobbed when their mouths separated.
“No, my sweet, how could you think I would end my life when suddenly I have everything to live for?” He cupped her face and kissed her again. “We can’t take too long tonight. Sweetheart, when I touch you, I have the strong urge to see you naked.” The heat in his eyes bathed her in warmth. “But we can’t. You’ll be missed.”
The last comment made her laugh. “As if I care.”
“But the world will care.” He touched his lips to the tip of her nose in a wonderfully tender gesture that made her feel treasured. “That means I’ll care. When you come to me, I want your reputation unsullied. I don’t want people to gossip about you, and we’ve sailed far too close to the wind already.” He kissed her again. “Can you make do with meetings like this for a month?”
“Do we have to wait?” She wanted to shout their love to the world, not retain the furtive nature.
“I want to court you in the full light of the public eye, leaving people to be in no doubt of my intention. I want it to be honourable, no possible stain on your name.”
“Then I should give you your stickpin back.”
He laughed softly. “You have it?”
“I was lying on it.”
His laughter turned into a delighted grin. “Keep it. I like knowing it’s found a good home.”
“But aren’t you known for that diamond? That’s what people say. It’s one of the finest diamonds in the country.”
He touched his mouth to hers. “Then it will make you a ring in the fullness of time.”
Her heart thumped against her ribs. A proposal?
Gazing into his eyes, she could see something else, a spark of distance. “What else do you have to tell me?”
“I want your brother content with your choice.”
“Why shouldn’t he be?”
He gave a strangled laugh. “You can’t be ignorant of my reputation. I earned it, every bit. And worse.”
Leaning closer, she rested her head on his chest. So far she’d pushed that consideration aside, but she’d be foolish to ignore it for much longer. “Do you intend to continue after—after?” He hadn’t even asked her to marry him yet, not properly. She couldn’t presume.
“No. I do such things because of who I am, and what I have to do. Before we—before I talk to you, I need to discuss our situation. And tell you a few more things about me. I can’t do it tonight, we don’t have the time. But I would like a longer, private interview with you.”
He laughed and kissed her again, this time more lavishly. They lost themselves in that embrace. His hand spread over her back, the palm hot against her spine and his arm held her close, then closer, so her hoops tilted back and her gown was crushed between them.
By the time they separated they were both panting. “But every time we’re together, I’m more interested in this,” he said. They were so close, but she couldn’t feel the nature of his desire.
She didn’t have to. She knew his member had hardened, just as she knew the area between her thighs had dampened and swollen for him. Its tenderness made her long to rub her thighs together or seek the relief his hand could deliver to her. “We should meet somewhere we can’t embrace, but we can’t be overheard. You might not want to touch me again once you’ve heard what I have to say.” He gave a laugh, but it was short and harsh, no humour there. “You might not believe me. God knows, it’s difficult enough for me to believe.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Nothing I cannot prove. D’Argento went abroad this afternoon. He will attempt to find your brother, at my request. Kentmere went to Versailles, didn’t he?”
“He said so, though he’s staying in Paris for now. We hear from him sometimes. Edmund doesn’t tell me who I may—” She broke off again, biting her lip and looking away.
He turned her back to him with a finger under her chin. “Say it. We both know I want you, and that means marriage. How could you think anything else?”
“I didn’t want to—I couldn’t…”
“Foolish,” he said, turning the word into a caress. “Of course that’s what I mean.” He kissed her softly. “Could you bear to spend
the rest of your life with me?”
“Yes.” Why prevaricate, when they both knew? “I’ve never felt surer of anything in my life.”
“The moment I saw you, I wanted you.”
“Yes,” she said. “It was the same for me. I’ve never felt anything like it.”
His gaze hardened, but only a little. “Never?”
She shook her head.
He kissed her again, and this time she hooked her arm around his neck and brought him down so their mouths pressed together firmly and their tongues danced in harmony. He drew away, his lips damp from their kisses, his eyes hot. “I can’t resist this much longer. Or you.”
Chapter Six
Snatched embraces had their place, Aurelia decided wearily after a few weeks, but she wanted more. The whole month he’d backed away, no more than a hurried kiss in private and much public display of devotion. Gifts arrived at regular intervals and he rarely failed to appear in her presence at least once a day. But they had none of the beauty of that encounter in the bedroom, something Aurelia fell asleep thinking about.
Sometimes she used her body the way he had, manipulated what she now knew was her clitoris, thinking of him there, doing what he’d done that night, and she came with explosive pleasure. But in ten minutes she was back to wanting him again. Sometimes she managed to sleep in that ten minutes, but more often she lay awake in frustrated longing.
Once she asked him for another meeting. She’d never behaved in such a forward manner before, but she found the situation intolerable. They were at yet another damned ball, and he was taking her to the refreshment room.
“I want more,” she said bluntly.
He shot her a surprised, slightly amused look. “More what? Food? Wine? Let me help.”
“You know what.” She lowered her voice, trying to keep the intensity out of her glare. God, she hated everyone watching them, as they had done for the last four weeks!
Mad for Love: Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 2 Page 7
