“Why don’t you tell people this?” she asked softly.
“You mean lend dignity to the rumors of the Mad Marquess by acknowledging them?” He shook his head. Warm sunlight poured through the windowpanes, heating the alcove in which they stood. “The people who matter know the truth.”
The implications of that statement zinged through him. Ned knew the truth. By Simon’s own logic, that meant that she mattered. He could not deny that he had feelings for her, intense ones. But he could deny, did deny, welcoming those feelings. He could and would deny allowing those feelings the opportunity to tear his life apart all over again.
He had his work. He had his memories. That would suffice.
Her hand still rested on his arm, and her fingers tightened around his sleeve. As if she had read his thoughts, she asked in a whisper, “Now what?”
The question traveled to his core to interweave with the loss and sorrow that had made him the man he had become. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it, letting it linger there before he lowered it to her side and released it. “Now, my Ned, you must leave Harrowood forever.”
His words filled Ivy with more dread than that brought on by his preserved heart or artificial hand. She could think of only one response to that horror.
She dug in her bootheels. “No.”
“Ned, you must listen to reason.”
“Stop calling me Ned. My name is Ivy.” Panic rose up. She was about to fail in her mission for Victoria, but more than that, infinitely more, she couldn’t bear losing all she had achieved this past week working at Lord Harrow’s side.
She couldn’t bear losing him. “You cannot simply throw me out.”
His features implacable, Simon gazed at some point beyond her shoulder. “I am not throwing you out. I’ll arrange transportation for you to go anywhere you wish. Even back to Cambridge if you like.”
“I wish to stay here.”
“You cannot.”
“Why not? What has changed?” An invisible fist clenched her heart. “Am I not still the same person you believed in? Have I lost my talent? My vision?”
“You don’t understand. You were Ned then—”
“I wasn’t. You knew I wasn’t, yet you were willing to pretend.”
“That is correct. As long as we were both pretending and keeping that barrier between us, you could stay. But we aren’t pretending anymore, Ned. Ivy.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Have you any idea what your presence here could mean for both our futures?”
“I am willing to risk it.”
“I am not. Not for you, not for myself, either.”
“Please . . . I can’t give this up. Have you any notion what this past week has meant to me?”
He sighed, a sound full of regret. “I believe I do. It is the very reason I allowed you to remain.”
“Then what difference does the truth make?” Desperation nearly made her reach for him. Only pride—pride acquired through the past week’s accomplishments—prevented her from clutching his arm and begging to stay. “If we could pretend before, why not now?”
“Because everything changed when we kissed.” Turning his back to her, he leaned his hands on the windowsill. “Everything.”
He was right, for the first touch of his lips had awakened something new and vital inside her, a need that even now made her body ache to feel him, hold him. But she refused to accept that the dawning of one kind of passion must trigger the death of another, the passion of her ambitions. If that was what it meant to be female, then she would remain Ned forever.
“I swear to you, it will not happen again.”
His laughter cut in its harshness. Shoving away from the window, he rounded on her, caught her in his arms, and crushed her to his chest. “It will, Ned. By God, it will.”
He took her mouth with greed, and without mercy proved her a liar. As their lips meshed and their tongues entwined, she found herself wishing the kiss would never end, that it would happen again . . . and again. Within the fire and spark of that kiss, she silently cursed the desire that could be neither ignored nor prevented. She cursed herself for falling prey to it. She cursed him for simultaneously making her dreams come true and dashing them, and for being the kind of man, the only kind, who could ever claim her heart.
This time it was she who ended the kiss, breaking away with a feral whimper. In the same instant, footsteps thudded up the main staircase. Ivy blinked back tears and straightened her coat. His features taut, Lord Harrow strode past her and met Mrs. Walsh at the top of the stairs.
“Your solicitor is here, my lord. It seems he needs your signature on some legal documents.”
“Thank you. Tell him I’ll be down straightaway.” When the woman had gone, Simon returned to Ivy, waiting near the window. “Forgive me, Ned. It cannot be helped. You must be ready to leave on the morrow.”
“My name is Ivy,” she murmured to his retreating back. Lower, she added, “And I’ve no intention of leaving, not just yet.”
That evening, Lord Harrow went into town with his solicitor. Ivy didn’t learn this from him, for he left without a word. As the dusk shadows lengthened, she wandered to the gardens out of habit, knowing full well there would be no evening stroll to discuss the day’s events. Even so, she gathered the peace of the gardens around her like a fortifying shield as she considered how to proceed.
With her time here growing short, the two greatest dilemmas facing her were the prospect of failing to gain even the smallest clue about Lady Gwendolyn’s whereabouts, and whether she should take Lord Harrow into her confidence.
Doing so seemed a betrayal of Victoria, who had insisted that no one must know about the gift from her cousin. Ivy had made her pledge. Did she have the right to reinterpret her promise, or qualify it with even the most minor modifications? Victoria had said no one, and surely that meant not a single living being on the planet. Ivy wouldn’t simply be disappointing her friend; she would be committing treason against her queen.
Yet not confiding in Lord Harrow about his sister’s actions seemed a betrayal to him, and treason against Ivy’s own heart. Perching on the marble edge of the fountain and propping up a booted foot, she stared up at the angel as if her answers might flow from the glittering streams of water.
“I saw you walking out, Master Ned, and thought you should know that Lord Harrow can’t be meeting you this evening.”
As Cecil’s distorted figure approached, Ivy found nothing shocking in his appearance. In fact, her suspicion that he had guessed her secret but didn’t hold it against her made it easy to summon a smile for the man.
He removed his cap with a respectful nod that convinced Ivy he knew the truth of her gender. “He’s abroad on business and shan’t be back till late.”
“Thank you, Cecil, but I wasn’t expecting him. Not this time,” she added sadly. She couldn’t help concluding that Lord Harrow’s business might just as easily have been handled from home, but that he had left Harrowood to avoid her. Still, news of his prolonged absence tonight offered an unexpected opportunity.
“It’s good he’s taken on an assistant. No one should be alone as much as the master is.” The groundskeeper tipped his head again and started to walk away.
“I’m afraid I won’t be here much longer,” Ivy said. “Lord Harrow isn’t very pleased with me anymore.”
Cecil paused. “Oh, he’s pleased, young sir. Too pleased, and therein lies the problem.” Setting his cap back on his head, he gave a two-fingered salute.
A lump formed in Ivy’s throat as she watched him go. Dear Cecil. Would he treat her so kindly if he knew what she was about to do? She set aside her guilt for a later time and hopped down off the fountain.
“Welcome home, my lord.” The footman who had opened the door helped Simon off with his cloak. He draped the garment over an arm and held out his hands to receive Simon’s gloves and top hat.
“Thank you, Daniel. That will be all tonight.”
“Very good, my lord.”
Wearily Simon started up the staircase. He had considered not returning home tonight and staying in town instead, with perhaps Ben or Errol. In fact, he had considered not returning at all until Ned had left.
Because he feared that if he saw her again, he might never let her go.
But staying away had seemed cowardly, not to mention callous. It might have been easy to simply blame her for her deception and believe she got what she deserved. But the truth was he didn’t blame her. Had there been some law preventing him from pursuing his life’s passion, he would have sought any means of circumventing it.
If he could only have remained blind to the truth, or gone on pretending. If only he hadn’t kissed her.
Gripping the banister, he paused to laugh at the folly of all three notions. How could any man gaze upon those pert features and not see her beauty or her beguiling sensuality? As for pretending, he had ordered her to the gardens this morning intending to gently dismiss her from his service, not grope her, kiss her, and drive himself half insane with the press of her body against his and the image of her naked, moonlit breasts fresh in his mind.
What had happened merely proved they could not work together, could not remain in close quarters without falling prey to temptation. But if nothing else, he owed her a debt of gratitude for this past week. Her zeal was infectious, and for the first time in years he’d felt young and alive and—Galileo’s teeth—idealistic. And he owed her a final acknowledgment of her talents. She must never for an instant believe she had disappointed him as an assistant.
Or as a woman.
The unbidden thought startled him and threw off his stride as he made his way along the gallery to his rooms. Sentiments like that wouldn’t do, not if he was going to bid her good-bye in the morning. Taking the burning candle from the sconce beside his door, he held it out in front of him to light his way.
He needn’t have bothered.
Candle glow from beyond his sitting room brought him to an immediate halt. Silently he eased the door closed behind him and blew out his candle. A few feet away, the hearth gaped dark and empty. The one in his bedchamber would as well, for he never ordered his fires lit at night until mid-November at the earliest.
There was no reason for a servant to be in his rooms at such an hour. All but Daniel and Mrs. Walsh would have been abed long ago. Equally unlikely was the prospect of an intruder having gained entrance to the house. That left . . .
He strode through to the bedchamber and followed the candle’s flickering beacon into his dressing room. “Ned. What in Lucifer’s name are you doing?”
In waistcoat and shirtsleeves, her hands buried in the open drawer that held his silk handkerchiefs, she froze. For several seconds they regarded each other in silence, she pop-eyed and scarlet, he pulsing with anger and sheer befuddlement. The candle went on glimmering, oblivious to the growing storm.
He dragged a breath in through his teeth and tried not to focus on her trembling lips, or remember their sweet taste. This was the second time today he’d caught her snooping, and while the first might have been excused as scientific curiosity, this time was nothing short of a shameless violation of his privacy.
A scowl fixed in place, he crossed the room, seized her wrist, and yanked her arm high. “Lose track of time, did you, Ned? Didn’t expect me home so soon?”
Her gaze darted to the little clock he kept beside his shaving stand. Her brow puckered. She stared mutely back up at him.
“First the armoire, now my private rooms.” His temple throbbed as an unsettling thought occurred to him, one with the power to wring the joy from the past week. Still in possession of her delicate wrist, he dragged her closer to the light to better see her face. “Did you seek the apprenticeship in order to steal my secrets and duplicate my work?”
“No! Goodness, no.” Her head shook convulsively from side to side. “I’d never steal from you.”
The denial ignited his fury. “Who sent you?” he shouted. “Good God, was it Colin Ashworth?”
Despite Colin’s past transgressions, Simon couldn’t quite believe the charge even as he uttered it. Shrinking in evident fear, Ned backed away the full length of her arm, as far as she could go while he continued to possess her wrist. “It wasn’t Lord Drayton, or any member of your Galileo Club.”
The significance of her reply wasn’t lost on him. “Then someone did send you. You had best reveal his name, before I have you tossed in the local jail.”
She remained mute, obviously regretting her disclosure and unwilling to repeat her mistake. But where he expected tears, he was surprised to witness defiance in the set of her lips, rebellion in the arch of her eyebrows. “Shouting, threats, brute force . . . Is this how you typically treat women?”
She couldn’t have landed a more sobering blow than if she’d physically struck him with her fist. He immediately released her and backed away. “No. Blazing hell, no. I’m no blackguard, but you, young lady, are a thief, or—”
“I am no such thing, either.” She pushed her sleeve back to massage her wrist, and despite his being the victim here, he experienced a wave of chagrin at the welt his grip had left on her skin. His discomfiture increased when she pursed her lips, looking very much like a schoolmarm chastising an unruly student. “Has it not occurred to you that a woman who risks donning trousers must have an urgent reason for doing so? Have you never considered that reason?”
“I thought I understood. By God, I risked my own reputation along with yours because I believed I understood the passion that brought you here.” His anger surged again. She thought to turn this around on him, but the only crime he’d committed was indulging her whim.
No, that wasn’t all. He was guilty of not wanting her to leave, guilty of falling prey to his own weakness when it came to this woman. It was that weakness that sent him to her now, that prompted him to take her by the shoulders and pull her closer. Their gazes met, their lips nearly so. As her breath feathered across his cheek, his indignation cooled and his desire heated by several degrees.
“For science, Ned.” His arms went around her, anchoring her in place. “That is why I believed you took such a risk. For love of science.”
“I do love science. That part of me is real.” Shadows of remorse darkened her eyes. “I have loved every moment spent at your . . . in your laboratory.”
As he had loved every moment of having her there—of having her here, against him, where he could smell the scent of her hair, where her warmth permeated his clothing and kindled his lust. “Then why this betrayal?”
“Because . . .”
Trembling, she fell silent, and Simon found himself holding his breath. Would she trust him? Until that moment he hadn’t realized how important it was to him that she did. Just as she had done, he turned the question around onto himself. Had he, this past week, given her ample reason to place her trust in him?
He found himself hoping to God he had.
Her trembling suddenly ceased, and the fear smoothed from her brow. “If I have betrayed you, it was not by choice but because my loyalties were first pledged to another. I was sent here to find your sister and recover a valuable item she stole when she fled London.”
At mention of Gwendolyn, dismay sank like a lodestone in Simon’s gut. He set Ned at arm’s length. “Galileo’s teeth. What the devil has that girl done now?”
The tip of Ned’s tongue slid across her bottom lip, leaving a tempting sheen. “I cannot tell you, Lord Harrow, unless you swear upon your honor, on your very life, that you will divulge the truth to no one.”
Chapter 10
“You rummaged through my private things,yet it is I who must swear?”
Ivy expected scornful laughter to follow; indeed, Lord Harrow tilted back his head as if in preparation of that very response. But he only peered at her with a hooded expression that sent a shiver down her length.
Then he thoroughly surprised her. “All right, I swear. Provided you tell me something believable. Who sent y
ou, and what is it you claim my sister stole?”
“Something valuable and quite secret that belongs to—”
His fingers fell gently across her lips. “Wait. Come with me.”
Taking the candle, he led her back to his sitting room. She took a seat on the settee; he sat in the wing chair opposite, the empty hearth stretching between them. “Tell me your name.”
“I told you that first day. Don’t you remember?” She couldn’t keep the wry chuckle from her voice. “It’s Ivy. Ivy Sutherland.”
“And I take it your father is not an undersecretary for the chancellor of the exchequer.”
She looked down at her hands. “I have no father. Nor a mother, either. Both were lost to a house fire long ago.”
He regarded her in silence, the candlelight casting his eyes and mouth in wavering shadow, so that she couldn’t read his expression. Very quietly, he said, “I’m sorry. Truly. Loss is something I understand well.”
The velvet rumble of his voice conveyed an empathy that made her heart contract. The grief that never truly faded pushed tears into her eyes, tears for her mother and father, and for the lovely woman who had conceived such beauty in Harrowood’s gardens, though she herself could never walk its paths.
Blinking, unable to speak, she nodded.
“You mentioned sisters. Aren’t they wondering where you are?”
She swallowed. “Laurel, the oldest, is presently abroad, in France. The other two are home in London, and they are well aware that I am in Cambridge.” Her hand went to her hair. “In fact, they helped me prepare.”
“And your connection to Gwendolyn?” His voice became stern, demanding.
Ivy chose her words carefully. “I have never met your sister. It is her mistress with whom I am acquainted.”
Fresh anger iced his facial muscles. “That . . . is . . . impossible.”
“I assure you it is quite possible. My sisters and I have been confidantes of the queen since we were small children, in the days when no one could have guessed the obscure little princess would ever wear the crown.”
Outrageously Yours Page 13
