Outrageously Yours

by Allison Chase

  Ah, how would he return to his equipment and experiments alone? What joy would he find there without her?

  Reaching out, he stroked the dusky crimson blossom of a Dark Lady rose, one of Aurelia’s favorites. Ned liked roses, too. She had mentioned that her uncle had cultivated a rose garden. Stepping closer, he attempted to pluck the flower from where the stem branched from the main stalk. A sharp pain pricked his thumb, and a drop of blood spattered to the ground.

  At the same moment, a scream ripped through the morning’s muffled quiet. Simon spun about in the direction from which it had come. A second scream sent him running toward the house.

  Her heart pounding, Ivy made her way down the wide, curving garden steps. Why had Lord Harrow sent for her?

  Had he discovered evidence of her incursion into his locked armoire? Was she about to be tossed out of Harrowood on her ear? Since discovering the shocking contents of that innocent-looking cask, she had more than once contemplated the wisdom of removing herself as far away from Harrowood as possible. But then she might never locate Lady Gwendolyn or recover Victoria’s stone. No, she must stay, must complete her mission.

  Yet in truth, her fear of Lord Harrow’s grisly experiments posed far less of a dilemma than fear of her growing feelings for him, a man with perhaps a tenuous hold on his sanity. Today, then, assuming he did not throw her out, she must gain command of those fears—and feelings—and behave with a modicum of normalcy.

  Or he surely would send her packing.

  At the bottom of the steps, she continued down the sloping lawn to the half wall that marked the entrance to the upper tea garden. As she came through the arbor and around the box hedge, a hunched figure rounded on her, a pair of long, lethal shears aimed in her direction.

  Ivy stumbled backward. The figure shuffled closer, emerging from the shadow of the hedges. Daylight tumbled across his distorted features: bulging eyes, misshapen cheeks, and a grotesque slash of a mouth. As he raised his weapon, his body listed at a precarious angle, his left shoulder a raised and twisted knot.

  Ivy fell back into the hedge. Could this creature be the result of Lord Harrow’s experiments? Even as common sense rejected the possibility, the creature moved closer. Ivy cried out and thrashed to break free of the foliage.

  The branches trapped her fast. The shears swung. Bracing for the slice of the blades through her flesh, she let out a scream that echoed through the gardens and against the house. A pair of iron bands closed around her arms and yanked her from the hedge.

  “Ned! Ned! Calm down.” Lord Harrow spun her in his arms and gripped her shoulders. “There’s nothing wrong. Nothing to fear.”

  “But ...” She raised a shaking hand to point behind her. Did he not see the creature? “That . . . man.”

  “Cecil. My head groundskeeper and master gardener, who has just returned from a visit with his family.” Lord Harrow’s lips hardened in anger. He gave her shoulders a shake, a rebuke that filled her with instant shame. “I believe you owe him an apology.”

  He physically turned her to face the servant. The tips of the shears were stuck in the dirt now, and the man leaned his misshapen body with a hand propped on the handles.

  Her cheeks flaming, Ivy struggled to find her voice. “I am so terribly sorry. I hadn’t realized you were there and . . . those shears are rather frightful....”

  “He was trimming the hedge,” Lord Harrow ground out behind her.

  “Never mind, young sir.” Disturbing though his appearance was, Cecil’s voice proved as soothing as a Sunday hymn. “Mine’s a countenance even a mother’d be hard-pressed to love, though mine did her best. No harm done.”

  His forbearance brought tears to Ivy’s eyes; she hastened to blink them away. “Thank you. I’m so sorry. A wretched misunderstanding. I promise from now on we shall be friends.”

  “Very good, sir.” A conspiratorial gleam lit Cecil’s protruding eyes. “And we’ll both be remembering that beneath every surface lies a world to be discovered.” With a wink, he looked past her to Lord Harrow. “I’ll be tending to the bulbs now, my lord. Must get them out and stored before the first frost.”

  “Yes, thank you, Cecil.”

  Ivy watched the man waddle off, her nape tingling with a sense that he had seen clear through her disguise to the truth. Yet he hadn’t given her away. Had she found an unlikely ally? She turned back to Lord Harrow. “I’m very sorry—”

  “Do you realize your ridiculous behavior might have lost me the most brilliant gardener in perhaps all of East Anglia? He is no monster, Ned.”

  “I realize that, sir.”

  “Do you? Cecil is no lowly servant, either. He hails from gentry, but he chooses to occupy this position because society will offer him no other place.”

  He bore down on her as he spoke, his forceful stride sending her back several steps. “He accepted my apology. What more can I do?”

  “You might explain what happened yesterday to turn my gifted assistant into a blithering simpleton capable of passing judgment on my own wife’s cousin based solely on appearances.”

  Stiffening, Ivy gasped. “Your wife ...”

  “Yes, Cecil is a distant cousin of the Quincys. But that is beside the point.”

  “Does he know . . . ?” she whispered. Her next words spilled out in a torrent. “Does he know what you’ve done to her? What you’ve done with her?”

  Lord Harrow’s features darkened ominously. “What the devil are you talking about? Have you been listening to rumors? Are you that much of a blasted fool?”

  Fear and revulsion lashed through her; she shook her head in denial. “I didn’t need to. I’ve seen the evidence. Dear God in heaven—”

  Lord Harrow pounced, seizing the front of her coat in his fist. “Are you speaking of the armoire? Did you open it?”

  “I did. . . . I did and I saw.” Trying to pull from his grasp, Ivy cried out.

  Lord Harrow raised his voice to be heard. “You little fool, you don’t know what you saw. I’d have shown you myself when I thought you were ready.”

  Ivy tugged in vain against his hold. “You promised my conscience would not be compromised.”

  “And it has not been, not by me. But you . . . Yesterday I trusted you with my keys, with full access to my life’s work. And you could not wait to betray that trust. Why, Ned?” His voice dropped to a ragged whisper. “Damn you, why?”

  Ivy cried out again as Lord Harrow’s grip on her coat tightened. Suddenly he gave a yank that brought her colliding with his chest. The garden blurred. His arms went around her and his mouth descended on hers, sending shock waves of astonishment blasting through her. But contrary to his palpable anger and the steely force running through his limbs, his lips were warm and soft, and took hers with a gentle insistence that fired her blood and turned her knees to melted wax.

  His arms held her in place while his lips nuzzled hers open and his tongue swept her mouth. A multitude of sensations flooded her at once. The faint richness of coffee, the sharpness of the starch in his shirt, the abrasion of the morning stubble across his chin . . . the solid demand of his body against her own.

  Heaven help her, she relished all of it, his taste, his scent, the feel of him. Caught in a surging storm, Ivy hung on and let herself be kissed, losing herself in swirling heat and the aching desire that had been mounting inside her since she first set eyes on the man.

  And then, as quickly as the kiss had begun, Lord Harrow’s mouth hardened and he broke away. Straightening, he towered above her and took her chin in his hand. She looked dazedly up at him, at the emotions storming in his eyes. Then the full shock of what had happened struck her as if with a physical blow.

  Lord Harrow released her. Her trembling hand went to her lips, her tousled hair, back to her lips. They were hot to the touch, moist, and swollen. She shut her eyes. “You know.”

  “Of course I know.” She opened her eyes to see a vein pulsing against his temple, a muscle throbbing angrily in his cheek. Then his featur
es softened in a way that discomfited her more than his ire. A brush of his fingertips along the line of her jaw sparked her skin. “I realized it almost from the first. Since that day when I met you here in the garden, I knew.”

  “But . . . why didn’t you say anything?”

  His hands convulsed into fists, then relaxed. “I thought you deserved a chance to prove yourself. To have the opportunity denied you because of your sex. And because ...” Nostrils flaring, he gazed out over the gardens, his profile stony against the misty foliage. “Because you have talent. Vision.” He turned back to her, his eyes fierce. “Come with me.”

  At a brisk pace he led her into the house, up the curving tower stairs. He walked so quickly Ivy had to trot to keep up. By the time they reached the laboratory, she was rendered breathless.

  Her trepidation about his intentions made her dizzy. The lingering heat of his kiss left her giddy and baffled, hungering for more, and fearful of what might happen if he reached for her again. More than once, she considered turning back, retreating to her bedchamber, and packing her belongings.

  But he had been correct. She had betrayed his trust. The truth of it tore at her, rending her loyalties in two. Victoria . . . Lord Harrow. She saw no means of being faithful to both. Did she wish to keep faith with both?

  She crossed the threshold and stopped, her anxiety rising as Lord Harrow headed straight for the armoire, then pivoted. “Come here, Ned.”

  She shook her head.

  His pale eyes traveled over her. Then he retraced his steps, clamped a hand around her wrist, and forced her to walk or be dragged. In front of the armoire, he plunged his free hand into his coat pocket and pulled out his keys.

  “Please, this isn’t necessary,” she insisted. “What you do is none of my business. I should never have opened these doors. . . .”

  “Hush. I know why you snooped. It’s because you are like me. Your curiosity is insatiable, and your patience severely limited.”

  She wanted to protest that he was wrong, that her curiosity had been more than sated and if she didn’t witness another marvel of science for the rest of her life, it would be too soon. Fear kept her lips clamped as, with one hand, Lord Harrow unlocked the doors and threw them wide. His other fist still firm around her wrist, he sank to his knees and drew her down beside him.

  His determined gaze met hers. “If I release you, will you stay put?”

  Gruesome images ran rampant through her mind. She hesitated, and then gave her pledge with a shaking nod.

  With a doubtful expression he opened his fingers. Then he reached inside to drag the dreaded box to the front of the armoire. In another moment he’d unlocked and raised the lid. Ivy shut her eyes.

  Chapter 9

  “Open your eyes.”When Ned trembled at the curt order, Simon made an effort to smooth the anger from his voice. “Please open your eyes, Ned. You won’t understand until you see the truth of what lies in this box.”

  Her features were pinched, her breathing labored. Her eyelashes fluttered open. As if gathering her courage to look upon the devil himself, she angled a fearful gaze at the box.

  “Now, then.” Simon reached inside and lifted the first item. The liquid inside the jar sloshed; the contents undulated.

  Ivy’s hand went to her throat. Her color drained; she looked close to being ill. Necessity pushed Simon on.

  “Do you know what this is?”

  Her answer could barely be heard. “A heart. Her heart.” Horror blossomed on her face, turning fear to disgust. “How could you?”

  “I was asked to. Begged to.” Her glaring disbelief fueled his frustration. “You have been listening to rumors. Do you believe I’d truly carve open my deceased wife?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Not long before she died, a colleague of mine, Nelson Evans, passed away, a victim of his own failing heart. This heart. In his final years, he had devoted his experimentation to discovering a means of regenerating a dying heart, and of restarting one that has stopped. On his deathbed, he begged me to continue his research, and to that end, he bequeathed me his own heart.”

  “Oh!” The transformation in Ned’s expression was akin to the clearing away of thunderheads. She peered into the jar, at the heart with its attached skein of wires and electrodes. “And have you found a means of restarting it?”

  He sighed and shook his head. “I am afraid we are still a long way away from such a miracle. But I am convinced that electricity is the key. Luigi Galvani proved with his frog experiments that electrical impulses in the nervous system power the body’s muscles. Well, the heart is a muscle, too, and in theory an electrical current should stimulate a beat.”

  “Your generator?” She twisted around. With a glance over his shoulder, Simon regarded his invention, draped in sheets.

  “No, that one is much too powerful. Originally, I did experiment with different-sized generators in the hopes of ascertaining the correct voltage needed to achieve Nelson’s dream. But this particular generator is intended for another purpose entirely. Something I stumbled upon accidentally.”

  Her eager look invited further explanation.

  “Not yet, my Ned. We’ve still other matters to attend to.” He gestured at the box, at what lay inside. “Go on. Touch it. Or do you believe the second item to have been harvested from my wife as well?”

  Trepidation tumbled back across her features. “I’d prefer not to lay a finger on that.”

  “Not lay your finger on my artificial fingers?”

  “Artificial?”

  “A wax and rubber amalgam bonded to linen and stretched over a skeletal structure composed of wires, rods, and ball-and-socket hinges. Et voilà, one has a hand. Remarkably lifelike, no?” He held it out to her. “Go on. Hold it.”

  Cradling the appendage in the crook of her arm, she used her forefinger to swing the artificial fingers up and down. “Remarkable does not begin to describe it. I never dreamed it could be anything but real. I wondered how you kept it so perfectly preserved.”

  He said nothing as she examined the web of wiring and electrodes that entered through the wrist and wound around the metallic skeleton of each finger.

  “Does it work?” Excitement bubbled in her voice.

  “Depends on your definition of work. I devised this purely as a model to help me understand how the nervous system conveys electrical impulses from the brain to the rest of the body, to be interpreted in terms of voluntary movement.”

  She glanced up at him, eyes fever bright. “You are a genius.”

  He smiled. “No. What I am is willing to toss aside conventional thought in the pursuit of what if. At the time I constructed this hand, I was also desperate.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He put the hand, along with Nelson’s heart, back inside the box. Then he stood and helped Ned up. “Do you wish to know the truth about my wife?”

  She placed her hand in his and kept it there all the way down the spiral stairs to the first-floor gallery. Together they walked past several generations of de Burghs, all staring down at them from their canvas domains. Simon marveled at his actions while the reasons for them continued to elude him. Why speak of Aurelia? Why open himself up to the pain?

  He knew only that he desperately wanted Ned to understand about his past. About him, the Mad Marquess of Harrow. Once that was done, it would be Ned’s turn to reveal some truths.

  In the corner of the gallery just beyond the door of his own suite, he stopped. As breathtaking as ever, Aurelia smiled down at him, loving, patient, ever tolerant of his foibles. “This is her. My wife. Aurelia.”

  The unfamiliar act of speaking her name aloud produced a pain in his chest.

  Her lips compressed, Ned studied the portrait. “She was . . .”

  “Buxom, yes.”

  “I was going to say beautiful.”

  “Yes. She was beautiful. Can you see what else?”

  Ned took another step closer. “I detect a keen intelligence in her eyes.”

 
; “Yes, if anyone was brilliant, she certainly was. But that isn’t what I meant. Do you see the chair she is sitting in?”

  Ned shifted her gaze to the wood and brocade seat back framing Aurelia’s shoulders. She gave a slight shrug.

  “If you look closely, you can just make out the shadow of a handle on the right side.” He pointed. “Just there.”

  “Oh . . . a wheelchair?”

  His throat tight, Simon nodded. “A disease of the nervous system had slowly robbed her muscles of strength. It began before we were married.”

  Ned turned to him, her eyes grown large with comprehension, and with sympathy, too. Those Simon could accept. He released a breath of relief when no trace of pity hovered in Ned’s expression.

  “How ... ?”

  “How did she die?”

  Ned nodded.

  “An accident. Aurelia spent much of her time in the conservatory, among her plants. There is a door there leading down to a cellar, where the seeds and fertilizers were kept. One day, the servant assisting her left the door open. Aurelia happened to back up too far, and her chair went over the threshold. She fell twenty steps to a stone floor.”

  “Oh! I’m so sorry.” Ned’s hand came down featherlight on his coat sleeve. His first instinct was to shake it off, but he didn’t. He suffered her touch, then found comfort in it, then felt the pain inside him ease, if only a fraction. “What happened to the servant? Did you ...”

  “Sack her? No. I found a place for her on another estate.” He recalled how difficult that decision had been, how he’d had to dig deep inside himself for the strength not to lash out and punish the brokenhearted girl. “It was what Aurelia would have wanted.”

  Placing his hand over Ned’s, he drew her to a nearby window that faced the lawns beyond the west wing of the house. Beneath the wide stretch of a maple gilded by the autumn chill, a stone wall encircled a small plot of graves. “She is down there, with my ancestors. More recent de Burghs have been buried at Holy Trinity in the city, but I wanted her here, where she would be close.”