A Dream of Desire

by Nina Rowan

  Her name didn’t belong anywhere near such words. The name Talia belonged alongside flowers, silk, tea parties, laughter, kisses.

  James grabbed Talia’s arm and pulled her to a halt.

  “Talia, stop this foolishness, and I’ll give your bloody school a fortune,” he hissed.

  She threw him a withering look. “Oh, I’ll take your fortune gladly, my lord, but don’t you dare think you’ve a right to tell me what to do.”

  “Dammit, why, Talia?” James snapped. “There are a thousand boys like Peter Colston on the streets.”

  “That does not mean he is not worth helping.”

  “If Martin is telling the truth, Peter is a murderer.” The word tasted like rusted metal in his mouth. “Why would you possibly want to help him?”

  Talia stopped. She turned to look at him, a sudden darkness suffusing her eyes.

  “Because he saved my life.”

  Chapter Nine

  Explain.” James slammed the carriage door behind them, his features set and his eyes burning.

  Talia tightened her hands on her lap as the carriage started forward.

  “It happened last year, shortly after I returned from Russia,” she said. “There was a girl at one of the ragged schools whose mother was sick, and I went to her house near Queen’s Theatre one afternoon to offer my assistance. I hadn’t expected to stay, but I told the girl’s brother to fetch the doctor. By the time he arrived, and we’d procured some medicine…well, it was dark when I left to return home.”

  “And why did you not take Soames for protection?” James asked through gritted teeth.

  “Soames is loyal to my father, James, you know that. And as I said, I didn’t intend to stay very long. I’d gone halfway back to the cabstand when a man…well, he pushed me into an alley and intended…”

  Her throat closed, her skin crawling at the horror of what might have happened. The memory assaulted her—the stink of the alley, the man’s rough voice, the panic flooding her. The glint of a knife.

  James cursed. Anger radiated from him. “What?” he demanded. “What did he do?”

  “I managed to scream before he could do anything.” Talia put her hand on her chest. Her heart thumped against her rib cage. “Next thing I knew, a boy ran into the alley, crashed straight into the man so hard he nearly fell to the ground. There was a scuffle, and they…the man was killed. The boy was Peter.”

  She looked down at her entwined fingers, tight from the pressure of being squeezed. She felt the sudden, tense stillness surrounding James. Images flashed before her, the fear that had immobilized her as she stared at the crumpled, blood-stained body, the rasp of Peter’s breath, the unreal sensation of being in a nightmare.

  “Peter had gotten hold of the knife and stabbed the man,” Talia said. “I…I was shocked, couldn’t even move. Someone had fetched a constable when they heard the commotion, but Peter ran off right when he arrived.”

  She risked a glance at James, aware of a faint relief curling through her, the sense of a burden lifting. She’d told no one about that terrible night, and confessing it all to James eased the tightness around her heart. Even now, telling him her secrets felt right.

  “How was Peter arrested?” he asked.

  “Another man went after him and caught him. He was taken immediately to the station, but they wouldn’t allow me to speak to him. The following day, with Sir Henry’s help, I discovered that his father and sister live in Spitalfields and I went to visit them, to see if I could help. They told me Peter had been getting into trouble for years, so it wasn’t a surprise to them when he was sentenced to Newhall. I attended the hearing and spoke on Peter’s behalf, told the magistrate he’d been defending me. That at least got his sentence reduced to nine months. He was released a week before you returned to London, and his father said he would retain custody of Peter if he found decent work and enrolled at Brick Street. Until now, Peter has refused to do so.”

  The carriage came to a halt outside the King’s Street town house, and they went into the parlor. James closed the door, a frown creasing his face as he studied Talia.

  “You don’t feel guilty because of what happened, do you?” he asked. “It certainly wasn’t your fault.”

  Talia looked away from him as she pulled off her cloak and gloves, not wanting to admit how often she’d thought Peter would have been spared Newhall if it weren’t for her.

  “I owe Peter my life,” she said, tossing her bonnet aside, “but my motives aren’t entirely selfless. I also want his testimony to present to the House committee, a personal account of a juvenile’s experience at Newhall.”

  “Surely the other boys can provide testimony.”

  “Yes, several have, but none who were at Newhall for so long.” She shook her head. “He’s from a good family, James. His father is a clerk at the Patent Office. He’s not like the other boys, whose fathers are drunkards or who have been on the streets since they were children. Peter ran away from his regular school when he was ten years of age, and he’s fought all attempts to help him.”

  “So stop trying.”

  Talia’s chest tightened. “If it were you, would you give up on him?”

  “I wouldn’t try to help someone who doesn’t want my help.”

  A few petals from a bouquet of flowers had fallen to the glossy surface of a table. Talia swept them into her hand and rubbed the silky petals between her fingers.

  “Aside from his troubles, he reminds me of Nicholas,” she finally said.

  The frown lines on James’s forehead eased.

  “Nicholas never liked school either,” Talia continued, knowing James shared the same memories. “Couldn’t sit still long enough to pay attention to lessons. His tutors were constantly exasperated with his utter aversion to learning. Nicholas always wanted to be running about, chasing birds, riding horses…so different from Darius. Opposite sides of the same coin.”

  She lifted one of the bruised petals to her nose to smell the fragrance. “Peter reminds me of the way Nicholas once was. He even looks like him a bit, don’t you think? All dark, snapping eyes and black hair. Big, too, like he’d be good at sports.”

  For a moment, James didn’t say anything. Talia crushed the petal between her fingers. A pang speared through her. She missed her brothers. For all their arguing and bluster and interfering, she missed having them all nearby. Always there if she needed them.

  Oh, but she was still glad that James was back. Even with all the tension between them, it was easy to tell him the truth, easy to hope that he would understand.

  She lifted her head to look at him, almost seeing the thoughts shifting through his mind.

  “Talia,” he finally said, “if you think you can change these boys by making them read primers and learn sums, then you are sorely mistaken.”

  “And you have no faith, James.”

  Frustration flared in his eyes. “Talia, suppose one boy proves successful. He leaves behind his thieving ways, he learns how to read, how to add, learns a trade. Then what? If he’s lucky enough to find work, his employer will toss him a few pennies as compensation and work him to the bone. Then the boy will become embittered and realize all the learning he did wasn’t worth it. It will only be a matter of time before he thinks to steal from his employer, which will either send him to prison anyway or put him back on the streets. Right where he started.”

  Talia stared at him. “You really believe our work is that ineffective?”

  James sighed. “No, Talia. I believe people cannot be forced to change. Or even to do anything.”

  “Why on earth would you think such a thing?”

  “Because I’ve seen it!” he snapped, his body lacing with tension. “My father was a violent man, Talia. He beat my mother. My whole life, it was the same…he was a bastard and she…she spent every waking minute trying to hide it from the world. And even when people…family, friends…even when they found out, they didn’t do anything about it. No one did anything. Not even
the police. Nothing changed.”

  Pain seized Talia’s chest. A fierce urgency filled her to go to him, wrap him in her arms and soothe the anguish from his features. Instead she tightened her hands into fists and remained seated.

  “I…I’m sorry, James. I didn’t know.”

  He shook his head. “I wouldn’t have wanted you to.”

  “Was that why you spent so much time away from home when we were children?”

  James shoved his hands into his pockets and stared at the floor. “My mother often sent me away. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t know how bad things were until it was too late.”

  Talia frowned. “Too late?”

  Bleakness entered his eyes, cold as a frozen plain. Talia dropped the broken petals to the floor and rose, crossing to him in three steps. Without thinking, without questioning the wisdom of her actions, she slid her hands around his waist. He tensed, resistance lacing through him for an instant before his arms closed around her.

  Their bodies pressed together. Talia closed her eyes and breathed in the familiar exotic scent of him—cinnamon; strong, sweet tea; cloves. An old longing tried to wind its way around her guarded heart, but this time she didn’t let it. This time, she wanted only to erase that bleakness from his eyes, to ease the cold that seemed to have infused his entire body.

  “After my mother left, I didn’t think there was anything good, either,” she whispered. “But I was wrong. There was vile gossip and bitterness, yes, but there were also people who stood by us and lent us support. People like you, who gave me hope.”

  His grip on her tightened, his breath tickling the strands of hair at her temple. “Exactly what you’ve always been for me, Talia. Exactly why I spent so much time with you and your brothers when we were younger. You were a…a light.”

  A light. How lovely to think she had been a light for James, especially when she’d spent the past three years feeling as if she were living in the dark.

  She closed her eyes as images of her beautiful, elegant mother swept through her mind like a cool breeze. Her mother, who had risked everything and lost. Who had fallen so wildly in love that she’d abandoned her family.

  That was not the kind of love Talia wanted, a desperate love that would ruin both her and those around her. She wanted a love that blossomed, one that spread warmth like the rays of the sun. A love rooted in strength and certainty, not despair.

  She pressed her cheek against James’s chest and breathed him in, unable to deny that a small part of her still wished to share such a love with him. To prove that it existed, that it was stronger than anything.

  “We have to change things ourselves, James,” she whispered. “If my mother was so unhappy in her life, her marriage…why didn’t she do something else? Why didn’t she try to change her situation? Why did she just wallow in her misery until a man rescued her from it?”

  She shifted and looked up at him. “If there’s any lesson I learned, it’s that I can’t simply wait for something to happen. And I won’t give up on something…or someone…because it’s too much of a challenge. I won’t do what my mother did. I won’t be weak.”

  His expression softened as he gazed at her, his brown eyes tender with affection. “Even before she left, no one would have accused you of weakness, Talia.”

  “It’s not the before that has plagued me, James.” Dismay tightened her throat as she thought of all the barbed gossip and insinuations that had filled the wake of her mother’s abandonment. “It’s always been the after.”

  After her mother’s affair…

  After her parents divorced…

  After she confessed her love to James…

  After her brothers left…

  After James returned…

  All too soon, it would be after he left again…

  James cupped her cheek in his hand. Talia’s breath caught in her throat. She looked up at him, felt his gaze sweeping her face like the glide of fingertips. Her heart pounded, the warmth of his body still clinging to her.

  The first time at Floreston Manor, she had kissed him. The second time, he had kissed her. This time, they met each other halfway, each closing the distance with a sigh of surrender. Heat bloomed through Talia at the press of his lips, the way he tilted her head slightly so their mouths fit together without a seam. She spread her hands across his chest, feeling the warmth of his body burning through the material of his coat.

  Dangerous, she knew, and yet so utterly delicious the way his tongue eased past her lips to glide against her teeth. A moan escaped her, arousal unfurling like ribbons in her blood as she swept her palms up his stubbled cheeks to tangle in his hair. She gripped his hair tightly and stepped closer, her breasts nudging against his chest. James muttered something low in his throat, moving his hands down to her hips, his fingers closing into the material of her skirts.

  He deepened the kiss and urged her mouth open with the gentle pressure of his lips. Sinking into the heat of their union, Talia let him in, her mind filling with all the thousands of images that her dreams had conjured. She eased her hands into the opening of his coat, the heat of his torso sliding up her arms. His tongue touched hers, and a firestorm of sensation exploded in her blood.

  She tightened her fingers in his hair, loving the sensation of the thick strands brushing her palms. Even through the material of his coat and her bodice, she swore she could feel the heavy beat of his heart thumping against hers. She drank him in, her mind swirling with a thousand wishes and dreams that would forever flourish, no matter how often she tried to deny them.

  When shadows had descended on Talia’s life, when she’d wanted to hide from the world, James had been the one to remind her of all that was good. With his warm smiles and easy affection, the promise of an adventurous future that always radiated from him…with him as her bright, shining example, Talia had mustered the courage to chart her own path once again. To dare to be part of the world.

  She eased her lips from his, sliding them over his whiskered jaw to the pulse throbbing at the base of his throat. His breath escaped on a hiss as he pressed his mouth to her temple.

  “Ah, Talia, how you undo me…”

  The husky note in his voice flared her with heat, reminding her of how he had surrendered that afternoon at Floreston Manor. She closed her eyes and breathed in the sun-and-salt fragrance of his skin that summoned images of breezy tropical islands and hot deserts. His heartbeat pounded against his taut skin as she touched her lips to the hollow of his throat.

  His hands flexed on her shoulders, a sudden tension rippling through him. Sensing his retreat, Talia forced herself to break away from him first, her blood racing as she tried to control the desire swirling through her. She drew in a breath and turned away, pressing her hands to her cheeks.

  “I wish you hadn’t come back,” she whispered.

  “I wish I’d never left.” His voice was rough with dismay.

  Talia lowered her hands and turned to look at him. “Why?”

  “Because if I hadn’t…”—a flush of heat still crested his cheekbones as he stared at her reddened mouth—“if I weren’t always seeking another expedition, I could have married you.”

  He didn’t sound the remotest bit pleased at the thought.

  “And then you’d have an easier time monitoring me,” Talia said, her heart tightening when he didn’t deny her remark.

  “Marriage to you would not have stopped me.” Talia took a breath and lifted her head to look at him, needing him to understand the depth of her commitment to her charity work. “I need a patron for the Brick Street school, James.”

  “It cannot be me.” He shook his head. “It will not be me.”

  Although she had expected that response, disappointment stabbed through her. Regret darkened James’s face.

  “Talia, I would do anything for you, as long as—”

  “As long as it’s what you want,” she interrupted. “I know, James. My brothers are the same way, which is exactly why I haven’t told t
hem. But if I have support, if I have a patron before my father returns…perhaps the school will have a chance. And if the House committee agrees to fund the school as well, that means the boys will have an alternative to prison.”

  “I still fail to see why you cannot do all of this work without venturing into dangerous territory.”

  “For the same reason you cannot do your work without trekking into deserts and navigating jungles,” Talia retorted. “How would you chart the course of a river without traveling it, James? How would you create a map of the outback without going there? Would you have thought to bring back a piece of green quartz for me if you hadn’t found it yourself?”

  …because you looked at it and remembered the color of my eyes…

  She cupped her hand around the bump in her pocket where she kept the stone wrapped in a handkerchief.

  “Do you think I’ve not worried about you every time you’ve left?” she asked, her throat aching. “Do you think I haven’t prayed for your safety, hoped you wouldn’t be hurt? Do you think I haven’t wondered whether or not you would even return?”

  “You…you are a lady, Talia, the daughter of an earl…”

  “Who believes change is possible.” For a heart-stopping instant, she thought she saw him waver. She tightened her grip on the quartz. “Won’t you help me?”

  James looked at her, tension lacing his shoulders. “You could be hurt, Talia. I don’t trust any of those boys farther than I can throw them. And while your motives are admirable, even if I hadn’t made the promise to North, I would still insist you stop.”

  Talia’s spine stiffened with a combination of irritation and disappointment. “And do what instead, James? Host afternoon teas and church bazaars? If you think such activities would suit me, then you don’t know me at all.”

  He turned away from her, his hands curling into fists. “I do know you, Talia. And it is precisely because I know you that I cannot bear the idea of you associating with criminals and murderers. It’s like putting a diamond in a pig’s trough.”

  In spite of herself, Talia almost smiled. “Diamonds are hard, James. They can cut glass.”