She opened her eyes; they were sharp with pain. He couldn’t help himself; he reached for her. She froze.
“Don’t,” she said, her voice thick with tears.
“But I—”
Anger flashed in her eyes. “Don’t.” And then: “Take me home. Please, Henry, take me home.”
He looked at her. “I’m sorry.”
She looked back. A beat passed between them. She reached out, and brought her hand down, hard, on the side of his face.
His ears rung at the force of her blow; his skin stung as he blinked, stunned, holding the offended cheek in his hand.
For the first time in his life, Henry didn’t know quite what to say.
Caroline looked away, her chest rising and falling; and then, quickly, she made to move past him. He reached out and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her against him.
“Don’t touch me,” she said, fighting his grip.
He gritted his teeth. “I’ll not allow you to walk home unescorted. It’s dark, and those blasted thieves are on the loose.”
“I don’t want you to escort me. My brother lives three streets over, I’ll be fine—”
“No.”
“No?” She drew back. “Don’t think I won’t slap you again.”
He met her eyes. “But you won’t.”
She hesitated. Tears streamed down the sides of her face as she closed her eyes, shaking her head.
“Why are you here?” Her voice broke. “Why have you come?”
His grip loosened on her arm. “Business. I’m here on business. I would’ve never—”
She scoffed. “Business. Of course.”
“I’d tell you more if I could.”
She tore her arm from his grasp, backing away. “I don’t want to know more.”
“What do you want?” he said, softly.
Caroline met his eyes. “I want you to take me home. And then I want you to stay away from me, for good.”
“All right.” He licked his lips.
“I thought you were dead,” she said, swiping her cheek with the heel of her hand. “Sometimes I even wished you were dead. That made it hurt a little less. I couldn’t stand the thought of you being alive anywhere else but with me. I never heard from you, nor did anyone else. The way you disappeared after taking all that I had to give—the grief, Henry, you cannot know the grief I have suffered. And now, to know that you’ve been alive all this time . . .”
I know, Caroline, he wished to say. I know the weight of your grief, for I have carried it as my own these past twelve years.
“I thought you were dead,” she repeated. “Then you appear out of the ether, running from God knows what through the hedgerow in Hyde Park. Did you follow me to Hope’s ball?”
“No.” He swallowed. “Yes. Maybe. Not exactly.”
She scoffed again. After a beat she drew a deep breath and squared her shoulders. When she spoke she sounded weary, defeated. “Take me home, Henry. And for God’s sake, don’t ever come near me again.”
He chewed on his bottom lip. “If that is your wish.”
“It is, very much.”
“Your gown.” He nodded at her bare shoulder. “Let me help you.”
Caroline turned her back to him, pulling her loose hair over that damnably beautiful shoulder. She was shaking.
He took the laces of her stays in his hands and gave them a soft tug; her body rocked in time to his movements. He wove the silken laces through each of the heavily embroidered grommets, his fingers brushing her skin as he tied off the laces at the small of her back.
His throat was so tight he could hardly breathe.
Henry brought her sleeve back over her shoulder, and then he went to work at the buttons of her gown. His fingers trembled and slipped, and he cursed under his breath. Her scent filled his head.
“I can do it,” she said, reaching back.
“No.” He tugged her toward him. “There’s only a few more.”
He coaxed the last button through its tiny hole. Resisting the impulse to put his hands on her, he stepped away, releasing a long, low breath.
“There,” he said. “A little crooked, perhaps. But otherwise all set.”
Caroline tucked her hair back over her shoulder and placed her hands on her ribs. “Thank you.”
She shivered at a sudden gust of chill night air. Henry crossed the room and closed the window, untangling one of his coats from a nearby settee. He really should look into hiring a valet, and soon; Mr. Moon was better at being a woman than he was at tidying up.
“Here,” he said, holding the jacket up to Caroline’s back. “Might I?”
She glanced over her shoulder. “Yes.”
He wrapped her in the jacket, carefully; she pulled it by the lapels closer about her breast.
Her breast. He couldn’t even think the word without feeling like his cock would leap out of his breeches.
You cad, he screamed at himself. You bastard.
“Let’s go, then,” he said gruffly.
She followed him out into the night. The air felt blessedly fresh, a welcome foil to the desire still burning inside him. He could not bear to be close to her—honestly, his cock would leap out of his breeches if he so much as looked at her—and so he walked a pace or two ahead, stalking through Mayfair as quickly as his feet would take him.
Henry knew her family’s town house well; it was one of the oldest—and largest—mansions in Hanover Square.
She moved quietly behind him, her footsteps falling lightly on the cobblestone street. At last they drew up at the back of her brother’s house. Curiously, several windows glowed with light. It must be half past one, at least; what the devil was Harclay up to at this hour?
“Do you need help getting in unnoticed?” Henry asked, hopefully. “It appears your brother might still be awake. We might—I mean you might—climb through the window?”
Caroline glanced up at the house, a small smile playing at her lips. “Oh, he’s awake, but I daresay he is much occupied at the moment—either with wine or a woman or both. Probably both, now that I think about the way he was looking at that girl tonight. Though I must confess I am relieved he—she—they both made it out of Hope’s ballroom alive. He won’t notice me sneaking in.”
“Of course.” Henry rocked back on his heels. “Well, then.”
She turned to look at him. “Here, your coat—”
“Keep it.”
“I couldn’t. One of the maids might find it, or William. It’s far too large . . .”
“Keep it,” he said. He gave the sleeves of his robin’s-egg blue coat a good tug. “I find I am rather partial to this lovely frock, and may have several made in its pattern. Something about the cuffs, and the sheen of the silk—rather glorious, isn’t it?”
She smiled, a sad thing. Her eyes gleamed in the blue light of the moon above. “Good-bye, Mr. Lake.”
“My lady.” He bowed, struggling to keep his voice even. “I—I confess I do not know what to say.”
For a moment she hesitated. “Neither do I. Good night.”
And then she was gone, the squat kitchen door closing noiselessly behind her.
Henry stared at the door for several minutes, not moving, hardly daring to breathe. He didn’t know what he was waiting for. She wasn’t coming back; she wouldn’t fly through the door and in a fever of romantic impulse toss him into the nearby bushes and have her way with him. That light in her eyes—the one that belonged to the seventeen-year-old girl he knew a decade ago, the one that flashed with mischief, and the intent to indulge such impulses—had been extinguished.
Finally he turned and strode back out to the street.
He didn’t make it very far.
Somewhere between Hanover Square and Regent Street, Henry drew up, suddenly, in the shadows of what was probably s
ome royal duke’s half-completed palatial manse. Leaning his forearm against the naked scaffolding, he smothered the sounds of his grief in the crook of his elbow.
Beneath him, the wooden beam shook in time to his shoulders.
He managed to compose himself sometime later, wiping his nose on his sleeve. His ribs felt bruised, as if he’d been beaten from the inside out.
Well, then.
There would be no sleep for him tonight. He looked up at the moon; it would be dark for hours yet. As he’d discovered years ago, there was no better cure for heartache than chasing scalawags through slums in the dead of night. He would hunt down the thieves and recapture the French Blue, and once Napoleon took the bait, Henry would be on the first ship bound for France. He’d forget tonight, forget the look in Caroline’s eyes when he’d called her by her name.
His work had always distracted him from what he’d done; he could not think about her if he was in motion, constantly. And tonight he needed to be distracted.
To Cheapside, then.
Six
Caroline moved silently through the shadowed halls of her brother’s house, not daring to breathe lest she release the sobs tightening at the back of her throat.
She stopped short at the suspicious sounds emanating from behind the closed doors of the drawing room. It was shameless of her, but at nine-and-twenty she was too old for such trifles as shame, and so she drew closer, angling her head so that she might better listen.
There was the tinkling of laughter—female laughter—and then, a beat later, a voice.
“Wait a moment,” the woman said. “How am I to double my stakes? I’ve only one virtue to offer, after all.”
Caroline blinked. Surely this woman was not wagering her virtue over a game of cards with William? It was preposterous to even think—
“I shall just have to take you twice,” her brother purred. Caroline could hear him shuffling a deck of cards. “Shan’t I?”
She surely was offering William her virginity. Caroline wondered what William wagered in return. Really, where did he find such willing victims? And which games of chance invited bets of a sexual nature?
The mind, in all its perversions, boggled.
Caroline straightened and continued her progress through the house, trying very hard not to think about what, exactly, her brother was up to behind those closed doors. She had the distinct feeling the woman with only one virtue to offer was the lady who’d been wearing Hope’s diamond at the ball, the one whose eyes were the same gray-blue shade as the jewel.
The jewel that was now gone, thieved in the chaos of an epic crush. She wondered what Thomas Hope would do to find it.
She wondered if Henry Lake was involved in its sudden appearance in a London ballroom; she wondered if he was involved in its theft, if that theft was the “business” that brought him back to England.
She slipped into her darkened rooms, pressing her back against the door as she closed it, quietly, behind her. Her eyes fluttered shut as she remembered the feel of Henry’s lips on her skin; her fingers brushed the place on her throat where his caress had begun, marveling that there was no mark there.
She marveled that he had not branded her with his searing heat.
She had wanted to push him off, and tell him to go to hell. It was what he deserved. Did he think that in the twelve years since she’d seen him last, she would forget that he’d claimed her soul and her body and disappeared the next day? That she would forgive him, and forget his trespasses, and welcome his embrace?
She’d come this close to doing just that. Not the forgiving and forgetting part—for she would never forget, and never forgive—but good God, the sweetness of being in his arms again had caught her unawares.
A shiver went down her spine as she remembered the feel of his hands on her face, the way he kissed her as if the world were ending, and this their last night together. It was their last night together.
Caroline shivered again. She drew the lapels of his coat more tightly about her; his scent, the spice, clung to the fabric, and she inhaled, filling her being with him. She’d met many men in her lifetime. None smelled so damnably good as Henry Lake.
She felt exhausted, wrung out, her eyes heavy from crying.
She felt aroused, incredibly so, the pounding beat between her legs impossible to ignore.
During that summer twelve years ago, after he’d left her, she’d wept for a week, and then another, always in secret, always hiding the sounds of her grief in her pillow. On the third week she swore she wouldn’t miss him, that he did not deserve her pain. And so she gave herself over to her hurt one last night, and when the morning came, she washed her face and went to breakfast and never wept over Henry again.
Perhaps she might do the same tonight. Perhaps Caroline might give herself over to her hurt, and her desire, one last time, and in the morning begin her liberated life as a widow; it had, after all, been more than a year since Osbourne’s passing. An eccentrically aloof, steadfastly unattached widow.
But tonight—tonight she would be with Henry. One last time.
Wrapping herself in Henry’s coat, she fell back upon the bed, the ropes beneath the mattress sighing in protest. Closing her eyes, she remembered the slide of his mouth over her shoulder and throat, the demanding press of his lips against her own, and the way he’d pulled her bottom lip between his teeth—
Dear. God.
Surrounded by Henry’s scent, Caroline tugged at her skirts, gathering them in her fists at her waist; toeing off her slippers, she heard them fall with soft thuds to the carpet below.
Her entire body broke out in a sweat at the image of him—him, Henry—looming above her, his shoulders blocking the night as he angled his head to kiss her. He took, and kept taking, and in that moment she’d offered up all she had to give.
Her heart took off at a gallop.
She tugged aside her chemise, palm brushing against a bare knee, and with impatient fingers reached inside her pantalets.
Her thighs fell apart at the first stroke of her middle finger against her sex. She was slick with desire, slick and very warm, swollen; she saw stars at the sensation that spiked through her. Her nipples pricked to life against the confines of her corset, pleading to be set free.
His face flashed across the backs of her closed eyelids, the concentration in his narrowed gaze as he’d stalked her across the ballroom.
Henry.
The breath caught in Caroline’s throat. Her fingers worked slowly between her legs, tracing slippery circles over the center of all this maddening, delicious sensation.
And oh, the feel of his skin against hers, the inviting warmth of his body beneath the layers of that ridiculous, and strangely charming, costume . . .
She gritted her teeth as her desire pulsed hotter, her fingers moving quickly now, pressing and tugging and pushing as her body burned. It had been so long since she’d felt such searing need; she couldn’t remember the last time she felt so awakened, so frustrated, so insatiably hungry.
The feel of his arms around her, the heat in his eyes as he’d looked down on her, and said her name—it hurt, that memory, because it would be the last time she’d ever feel that way again. It hurt, and it aroused.
The tightness between her legs became unbearable. Her body arched off the bed, her hips bucking against her hand. Her eyes flew open as the beat beneath her fingers turned sharp, spiraling higher and higher.
Henry.
What she would give for him to be here, now, so that they might finish what they started in his brother’s bedchamber! How she longed to run her hands over the muscles and slopes of his bare shoulders, to feel the gentle press of his weight against her as he moved between her legs.
She bit her lip and fell back to the bed and with one last stroke of her fingers sent herself over the edge. Tears trailed down her temples into her hair as sh
e gasped against the force of her climax, legs curling as if they’d wrap themselves about Henry’s imaginary hips.
His hips, heavens, those hardened slices of temptation—
Her desire pulsed hard, hot, one last time. Her pulse rushed in her ears.
“Henry,” she whispered.
Her fingers stilled and the beat of her completion slowed. Gradually she came back to inhabit the heaviness of her own body, the rush in her ears fading until she could hear the soft whoosh of her breath. In and out, in and out.
Caroline swallowed, the back of her right hand falling to her forehead as she stared at the ceiling. His scent was everywhere, mingled with that of her arousal.
Well.
Perhaps she might make an exception to her rule that she would never think of Henry again; perhaps she might only think of him when—er—the need arose.
For that was bloody lovely.
And lonely.
She blinked back the tears that threatened to begin anew. It didn’t make sense that she would desire him after all that he’d done to her; heavens, she was possessed of some modicum of self-respect, wasn’t she?
Still.
Even now the heat between her thighs throbbed at the memory of his legs wrapped around hers, trapping her against the bureau. His legs, and his eyes, the way he smelled and smiled.
She turned onto her side, tucking up her knees to her chest. She vowed that, when the sun rose, she wouldn’t think of those things anymore.
* * *
Wincing, Caroline turned over in her bed at the quiet knocking on her door. She opened an eye and was met with a glorious spring morning, the light arching through the open window bright pink with promise.
Promise that, at the moment, Caroline found intensely annoying.
Her mouth felt dry and sour; she groaned, recalling Henry’s unfortunate choice of libation last night in his brother’s chamber.
Henry.
She was awake suddenly, the memory of last night’s events rolling through her in a tide of poignant emotion. Meeting eyes with Henry through the trees in Hyde Park, Henry covering her body with his own in the chaos of Hope’s ballroom (chivalrously, and thrillingly), Henry’s lips and teeth nicking her jaw.
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