“And so you were able to take care of your family.”
“Mind you, it wasn’t glamorous at first—I wouldn’t recommend a room over a Seven Dials whorehouse as your next residence, for instance, Reverend Sylvaine.”
“And here I was sorely tempted.”
“It’s just … seeing the O’Flahertys … Adam, I’m worried sick about Cora,” she confided. Her voice nearly a whisper. She half laughed, half moaned and swiped her hands down her face. “For history repeats, doesn’t it? And in the last letter I had, her husband had gone missing. Will you pray for her?”
She turned hunted eyes up to him.
“I’ll pray.” It was a vow. Anything he could make right for her, anything he could do, he would.
A rogue breeze sent a few dead leaves tumbling and scraping after each other over the ground. It looked like pursuit.
“Such a kind thing to do, Eve,” he said, his voice soft, fierce. “To give your medal to little Katharine. Such a good thing.”
She shrugged with one shoulder. “I used to think it helped when I held on to it. It was so much better than nothing. It’s a horrible feeling, helplessness. God, how I hate to be at the mercy of anything.”
For a moment they watched the road together, as if it were the source of all surprises, for good or ill.
“How do you do it? How could you talk to him as though he was … human?”
It wasn’t an accusation. It sounded as though she truly wanted to know.
He drew in a breath. “Well, my father was … is … a bit of a tyrant. Unpredictable. Subject to rages, free with his fists. I learned to read him the way you can read the weather, in order to stay clear of him, and I think it’s how I became observant. And … I had to try to understand him in order to outthink him. And when I understood him … it wasn’t a far leap from there to compassion. I didn’t like him, mind you.” He said distantly. “And I don’t like John O’Flaherty, either. I think he’s despicable. But I pity him.”
He’d never said these things aloud to another soul. He wasn’t certain he’d drawn these conclusions quite this clearly before this moment.
But he wanted to give something of himself to her. Even as he knew these exchanges of confidence bound them ever closer together, like a cat’s cradle, even as he knew they simultaneously unraveled each other.
“And there are days … nearly every day … when I hope O’Flaherty never returns to his family, like your da. And when the O’Flaherty boys are old enough to work their scrap of land and raise stock, I think somehow, with luck, with my help and the worthy Mrs. Sneath’s battalion, they’ll all survive the better for it with their father gone. But sometimes a man’s family is all he has, the only thing that keeps him going from day to day. He may not deserve them, but it’s not an easy thing to deny him whatever comfort that might bring. And everyone, like you say, deserves a chance.”
When he turned, he found her eyes on him with an expression he couldn’t decipher. Something open and aching, something like pain that could just as easily have been joy.
It smoothed into inscrutability so swiftly it might have been a trick of the light.
“I would have liked to rip his throat out,” she said almost absently. “O’Flaherty.”
“I know.”
She half smiled. “Such calm in the face of my violent confession.”
The decision made itself. It was a pure extension of the moment. He slipped his hands in the pockets of his coat and closed it around the box Lady Fennimore had given him, nudged it open with his thumb, felt the fine chain beneath his fingers.
He closed the little gold cross in his hands and lifted it out.
He hesitated only a moment before he spoke. “I’d like you to have this. Lady Fennimore gave it to me. Said it brought her luck and protection. She said I’d know to whom I should give it.”
He opened his hand and showed her what it was.
She peered down at the tiny cross. Her breath went out of her, softly, in surprise.
A faint flush washed over her cheeks. For a good long while she didn’t look up at him. Perhaps she didn’t want him to see her expression. Perhaps she was considering what it meant to him, and what he wanted from her, and the consequences of accepting a thing.
“Oh, but I’m grown now.” She strove for lightness. “I shouldn’t have need of protection. I couldn’t possibly acc—”
“Eve.”
She stopped abruptly. Her face lifted, her eyes widened at the quiet vehemence he’d given her name.
“It’s all right to need help on occasion. It’s all right to let someone else look after you for a change. And, sometimes, accepting a gift is a gift you give to someone else. And that’s all it is.”
She hesitated. Her lips pressed together in indecision. And then she blew out another breath.
“Will you … will you put it on for me?”
And slowly, slowly, she turned around and cupped a hand to the knot in her hair and lifted it.
Revealing that fine trace of dark hair at her nape, the pale soft skin.
A motion so sensual, so intimate, it felt nearly as though she’d lifted her gown over her head and let it drop to the ground.
She angled her head, sending an oblique glance over her shoulder through lowered lashes.
Then turned away from him again.
She never could resist a challenge, and she flirted like breathing.
And oh, God, she knew. She knew what it did to him.
Just as he knew what he did to her.
In some remote place in his mind, the word “Haynesworth” stirred. Distantly, he wondered how many men she might have looked at in just the same way.
But Haynesworth seemed infinitely far away from them now.
Once again, the world was comprised of the two of them.
Suddenly, his fingers, usually quite reliable, were so clumsy it was though he’d just been given the use of hands for the very first time.
He fumbled what felt like endlessly with the clasp to open it. He brought the necklace around the front of her; he lowered it slowly, slowly, until the cross gently bumped the swell of her breasts.
And deliberately he dragged it up, up, up, the fine chain a slow caress over her skin, until he felt the weight of the little cross settle against her collarbone. And he watched, enthralled, as gooseflesh rained over the back of her neck.
Her shoulders were swaying now with her quickening breath.
He could hear his own breath, too.
His head seemed to float above his body. Latching it was another exercise in eternity. His trembling fingers brushed against her unconscionably satiny skin as he did, against the silky dark hair at her nape.
And then it was done.
His fingers hovered there, just above the latch. Loath to leave her.
She never wants to be at the mercy of any man, he thought.
He suddenly felt like the oak tree, planted there forever, doomed to remain motionless a mere hairsbreadth away from a woman he didn’t dare touch with more than his fingertips.
He closed his eyes against an onslaught of want so total it could just as easily be called anguish. Dear God. Just to lay a kiss there, just there, beneath her ear where her heart beat, and know he had caused the swift slam of it. To slide his arms around her, to follow the eloquent line of hip to narrow waist, to bring his hands up over her breasts, to gently crush the weight and give of them in his palms, to hear her moan. To drag his fingers over her nipples to make her jerk with the pleasure of it. To slowly furl up her dress and slip his hands between her thighs, sliding up to find the hot, silky skin above her garters. To search higher, and higher, to delve into the wetness between her legs. To feel her legs falling helplessly open for him, asking for more, for deeper, for the release he could give her.
To free his stiffening cock, then to turn her, and bend her, and plunge into her as she braced herself against the tree and took his thrusts …
His breath was a low roar in hi
s ears. He was shaking now.
And in vain he struggled to breathe through it, the way he would any pain.
It was useless. He’d tipped to the other side of desire, and he fell completely.
To hell with bloody Lady Fennimore and her beautiful suffering.
He watched, as if in a dream, as his mouth lowered. And first just his breath stirred the fine dark hair. And then his lips, at last, were against her skin. He pressed, slowly, lightly, a kiss there.
Her breath hitched. Half sigh, half moan, the most wholly erotic sound he’d ever in his life heard.
His lips lingered softly, so softly. His breath, his mouth, savoring her.
Her head fell back heavily, languidly, inviting his lips to glide along the silky contour of her throat, to the pulse thumping beneath her ear. He circled it with his tongue. Covered it with his half-open mouth. Her body swayed hard with her breathing.
Molly the dog began barking.
It cost him every bit of control he possessed, he lifted his head again. In that moment, it felt like the hardest thing he’d ever done.
“There,” he finally whispered, into that eternal silence.
She said nothing.
The tattered sound of her breathing said everything.
And they stood like that, frozen in a moment, a hairsbreadth away from touching each other, Adam’s erection straining against his trousers. In an agony of want and indecision.
As Miss Amy Pitney’s coach turned the bend.
And as she looked out the window she saw the vicar standing behind the countess. So close it was entirely possible he was touching her.
The countess’s eyes were closed. Her face seemed to be suffused with some enormous emotion.
And then, when they heard the wheels of her carriage, they moved apart as abruptly as scattered ninepins.
The countess moving for the house, the vicar for the back of the house.
IN A HALF hour or so, the voices of Mrs. Sneath, Amy, Josephine, and Jenny, Lady Fennimore’s daughter, helped Eve restore the O’Flaherty household to a cheerful uproar.
The reverend stayed with them inside the house until his other volunteers arrived, then all the man descended upon the outbuildings, hammering and shouting and laughing over the work, while inside the house, Eve bumped into things. And started sentences and forgot to end them. Or ended them by staring into space.
She let the soup boil over, and competent Captain Katharine dashed for the stove and rescued it. She began to sweep the floor, then paused, her hands on the broom, until one of the boys pulled it from her hand.
“Fine deckhand you are, Lady Wareham!” he declared. “Thirty days in the hold!”
“An excessive punishment, surely,” Evie said mildly.
She sat down to take the baby momentarily from Mrs. O’Flaherty, and one of the other boys sat next to her. He’d nearly succeeded in nicking a comb from her hair before she noticed.
What she didn’t notice that while Amy and Jenny were tutoring the youngest girl and the boys, and playing and laughing with the children, they hadn’t said a word to her.
Because the kiss reverberated through Eve. It had taken her over; it flowed in her veins instead of blood. She could scarcely see anything; she only felt. All she needed to do to experience it again was to imagine it, and the place beneath her ear sang. A simple press of the lips against her throat had undone her.
Fear and joy moved through her body, two terrible, glorious partners in a reel.
She wanted him she wanted him she wanted him.
She didn’t notice when Amy Pitney paused in a moment of helping one of the boys with his reading and stared at her from across the room, her face closed, hard and speculative.
“Lady Wareham, the medal worked. It really worked,” Captain Katharine whispered to her, leaning companionably on her shoulder, in that carelessly affectionate way children do, as Evie did her best to help mend one of the endless piles of rent pinafores and short pants. “He left again. Da did.”
“I’ll tell you a secret, Captain Katie. The medal only works if the person wearing it is strong and clever. And you are.”
“I know,” Captain Katharine confided on a whisper.
Eve bit back a smile. How she loved that child’s confidence.
“And sometimes very strong, clever people are tested a bit more than other people, but that’s because they’re meant for great things, Captain Katharine. So sometimes what seems like the end of a trial is really just a part of what will be a long, exciting, wonderful story, with lots and lots of interesting parts in it. Have you heard the story of Hercules?”
Captain Katharine shook her head.
“We’ll have to read it together then, won’t we?”
The thought of stories involving trials and lots of interesting parts and the need for bravery made Eve remember Amy. If Haynesworth intended to speak to her father this week, then she would need to have a difficult conversation with her straightaway.
One of the more difficult conversations she would ever have, she suspected. But the kiss in her veins was an opiate. And somehow, she thought this might make it all easier.
And if Haynesworth hadn’t been part of her past, she might never be warned she was about to make a terrible mistake. And for this, at least, Eve supposed she ought to be grateful.
She looked up at Amy. Only to find Amy watching her with a peculiar, cold, speculative expression.
“Amy,” she said to her, “would you join me for a walk? I’ve need of some air.”
Chapter 17
OUTSIDE, THE SHOUTS and laughter of the men working on the outbuildings filled the air. Interspersed with barks from Molly the dog.
Amy was silent as they walked a few feet into the center of the yard. Eve stopped. “I’ve something to say to you, Amy.”
Amy crossed her arms and levered up her stern brows. “By all means, speak, Lady Wareham.”
“You’re aware I’ve known quite a number of men of in my day. I am, perhaps, in a position to assess the character of men. Do you believe me?”
Amy gave a short laugh. “I believe you’ve known a lot of men in your day. And I believe you’re very good at assessing character.”
Eve couldn’t quite gauge Amy’s mood. Or her tone. She’d seemed to learn irony overnight. There was high color in her cheeks, and she hadn’t blinked, and her arrogant jaw was righteously set. Her eyes were hard. It wasn’t difficult to see how Josephine had arrived at an olive-stone comparison.
“Well, then,” Eve continued. “Since you know of my past, you may know that I was employed for a time as an Opera Dancer at the Green Apple Theater. I knew Lord Haynesworth then.”
She waited, gauging Amy’s response.
No gasp of surprise, no widened eyes, no twitch.
Just a hard, cold stare. “Go on.” More of that irony.
“Very well … well, I’ll be very succinct. He fought a duel for my attentions. I fear I didn’t welcome his attentions even then, and the duel was unnecessary, unpleasant, and illegal. I fear he is in fact altogether … disrespectful to women. He was rather forceful with me, and he behaved dishonorably when I knew him.”
It was a horrible litany of crimes for an innocent, hopeful young girl to have to hear. How she wished she wasn’t afraid to say precisely what Haynesworth had done.
Amy crossed her arms around herself, as if to ward off her influence. She gave another of those short, unpleasant laughs.
“He told me you would say that.” She said it almost to herself. Her face was closed, resentful, as though she possessed some sort of secret.
A chilly little breeze of unease blew through Evie.
“Amy,” Eve said gently, “I fear it’s true. I don’t repent my past. It was what enabled me to care for my family. But I did meet many people as part of my career. And one of the ways I managed to survive in a world rougher than you can imagine, and rougher than I hope you ever know, is that I became a very good judge of character. Haynesworth is h
andsome and charming, but he’s ruthless and selfish and childish about getting what he wants and thinks he deserves, and he’s very much in want of a fortune. I hated so to tell you, but I think you deserve so much better than a husband like him, and can and will have so much better. And I thought you trusted me to tell you.”
With every word, Amy’s face went increasingly scarlet, until she was blotched and contorted with furious hurt.
“In truth, it’s the other way around, isn’t it, Lady Wareham?” she said bitterly. “He refused your attentions because he wanted nothing to do with an opera dancer. And now you’re trying to punish him for it by interfering with our chance at happiness. Because that’s the way you are. “Aloof,” she quoted, and barked a caustic laugh. “And all the while you wanted us to remain aloof so you could have the vicar’s attentions for yourself! How difficult it must have been for you to be forced to leave London and all the constant adulation you’re so accustomed to, that you think you deserve. And I thought you were my friend.”
It was Eve who flinched, shocked. “Amy, please listen—”
“And—” Amy delivered her coup de grace with furious triumph. “Jenny knows her mother gave that cross to Reverend Sylvaine. And he gave it to you.”
She aimed an accusing finger at the necklace around Evie’s throat.
It took every bit of Eve’s control to keep her hand from flying up to touch it.
Bloody hell. Gifts of jewelry always seemed to carry a consequence.
“You really are a Black Widow, aren’t you? You’re dastardly clever, I’ll grant you that. The vicar is a good man, Lady Wareham. And he’s a man, so he isn’t to blame if his head is turned by you and your ways. But he won’t fall into your … your … web.”
Even through her temper, Evie almost laughed. Amy was clearly suffering in the throes of her very first, real, righteous torment. But Eve had worked with actresses and befriended opera singers, and histrionics were practically the language they all spoke. To her it was nearly humdrum. She was torn between giving Amy a good hard shake and patting her soothingly.
A Notorious Countess Confesses: Pennyroyal Green Series Page 19
