A surge of arousal raged through him as he considered clearing the top of his desk and tossing up her skirts. He resisted the urge to act like a randy schoolboy and caught himself before he slipped deeper into reverie. “It seems you are set on Boston, no matter what I advise.”
She thrust her chin out. “Why do you want me to stay . . . so much?”
A very good question. If she was such a torture, why not encourage her to go? If only it were that simple. He returned her stare. “Why do you want to leave . . . so much?”
Mia growled a harrumph. “I believe you asked me here for another reason?” She met his gaze with an arched brow and an air of defiance. Good God. She had no idea how gorgeous she was when angered. Her rich brown eyes smoldered like dark embers, and the way she tilted her chin—as regal as a princess. He marveled at how often she left him close to breathless. The days they had spent together in Paris had been—ne plus ultra—the ultimate in romance, danger—and those sensuous, erotic nights. He drew in a breath.
Even before they left Paris for London, he began to pull away. He had acted shamelessly at the Contessa’s soiree, baring her breasts, acting the debauched husband. Mia had borne it all with admirable flair, style, panache, confidence, dash, éclat—all of that and more. She had stunned him with her unabashed sensuality.
He leaned forward and passed her a brandy. “You have heard the term auto-gratification and understand its connotations?”
“It is the term the French use for sexual self-stimulation.” He suspected she was not uncomfortable with the language as much as she was unhappy with what it implied.
“Mia, you need to work on this, especially if you’re going to study in Boston. If you continue on—do your residency there you will spend years away from”—he stopped short of saying me—“you will be years away from home.”
Her soft brown eyes grew wider. “You could come with me. You can do your research anywhere, America or London, what does it matter?”
“I also have commitments to Gaspar—to seeing that things are properly restored in both worlds. As you surmised earlier, there have been difficulties.”
“What kind of difficulties?”
He sighed. “It’s important we not change the subject. For now, I would like you to begin to touch yourself.”
Mia nearly dribbled a sip of brandy. “Here, now?” She caught the drop of liquid with a finger and licked.
A trace of moisture on her bottom lip captured him momentarily. “Raise your skirt.” His gaze eventually met hers.
She lifted layers of silk up long, shapely limbs—she wore pale stockings with delicate blue pinstripes. “Higher.”
She uncovered pretty kneecaps and smooth thighs. He swallowed a gulp of brandy. The matching blue garters, with embroidered cornflowers, forced a quick adjustment to his trousers. “Place a limb over the arm of the chair and open your legs.”
When she complied, there was a peek at her French pantalettes—the very brief ones with a saucy little bow closure at the slit. Exeter scratched the stubble along his jaw. Perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea.
“Would you like me to untie the bow?” Holding her skirts up around her waist, she patiently awaited further instructions. Good God, what had he gotten himself into?
“Well, this is damned awkward.” The very thing he had been trying to avoid—an erection was on near full display beneath his trousers.
Her gazed dropped to his rather prominent problem. “I see.”
Exeter snorted softly and shook his head. “This exercise was supposed to be for you.”
She dropped her skirts and stood up. “I shall retire to my room and undress. I will get into bed, pull the covers up to my chin—so there won’t be any visual distraction. You will have another brandy, and then you come to my bedchamber and show me exactly what do with my hands.”
She placed her open palm on his crotch and stroked. “If your hand is over the covers and mine is under—”
He grabbed hold mid-stroke and stopped her. “Let’s give it a go.”
She nearly collided with Mr. Tandi as she backed out the door. The dark-skinned servant held the door as Mia whisked past him. “Will you be needing anything else this evening, sir?”
“I don’t believe so, we are both ready to retire.” On the brink of dismissing his manservant, Exeter hesitated. “If you have a moment, Mr. Tandi? A few questions have popped up . . . about Mia.”
Mr. Tandi closed the door and entered the room softly. Every gesture of this man was measured, gentle, every thought expressed, considerate. Exeter had never once heard Mr. Tandi raise his voice, though he had once taken a broom to an unruly scullery maid.
When Mia was very young, if she was badly behaved, a typical Mr. Tandi punishment consisted of a lengthy stint in the corner of the nursery, or the withholding of hot chocolate at teatime.
“Has Mia shared anything about her calling to medicine?”
“She will be an excellent healer. The Sky Father is pleased.”
“It seems an American medical school has a slot open midyear. I know you’re not keen on the country, but slavery is long past—by some twenty-five years. And the university is in Boston—duly civilized since the Tea Party.”
Tandi clasped his hands behind his back, and many long strands of beads rustled from the movement. “It would be my honor to serve Miss Anatolia.”
“Excellent. I worry about her.
“I have known Miss Anatolia since her birth. I gave the child her first bath, changed her wet nappies. I was there when she spoke her first word, took her first step. The month we were separated, I missed her as if she was my own child.”
“You’re saying . . .” Exeter switched his question mid sentence. “You never told me you were separated.”
“Mia was taken to a hospital in Pretoria. She had contracted a fever. There were many small bites—insects, they said.”
Exeter stared. “You say differently?”
“There is an old Zulu tale, one my people tell. About the evening panther—the black cat who is part human being. A creature with sharp, needle-like teeth, who travels in a dark mist. This being enters a hut during the night and shares his blood with another using a thousand bites.”
Exeter fought to control his temper. “You might have said something earlier . . . Mia obviously survived.”
Tandi’s gaze was far away. “I stole away in the night, with a shaman’s medicine. When I arrived at the hospital, Mrs. Chadwick was frantic. White doctors were of little use in the matter. The medicine I brought with me was potent—she could not hold it down, so we made a tea, and administered the brew over several days. On the fourth day, the child was better—in another week they sent us all home.”
More than curious, Exeter pressed on. “Any arcane tribal wisdom you might share about her current condition?”
“A shaman might know more.” His manservant met his gaze momentarily, as an equal. Tandi put his hands together in prayer. “What is done, is done.”
“And we are far from the horn of Africa.” Exeter frowned. This discussion felt like two men trying to sort through the care of a most cherished young woman, whom they both dearly loved. He found this new Mr. Tandi refreshing—as if the docile, reserved man was finally peeling off a few austere layers.
“Doubtful there would be anything in the library of secrets. Still, it’s a lead of sorts, should we chance to run into a Zulu shaman.” Exeter absently twisted a bottom lip. “Mia’s beginning to fully integrate her cat side. She’s making wonderful progress, but there is also another matter, and I’m dashed unhappy about it.”
“You are unhappy, Om Asa, because you love her as a child.” Tandi’s piercing black eyes hardly blinked.
“Of course I love her.” Exeter returned his stare. “Very much.”
“And yet you would choose to let her go.”
Tandi’s flagrant impertinence was so unexpected, Exeter actually sputtered. He could not quite believe his ears. The amount of chee
k from his manservant was unprecedented. “Why would you say such a thing?” Exeter protested.
“Because you do not face the truth in your heart.”
Chapter Twenty-six
MIA SAT AT HER VANITY and peered at the young woman reflected in the mirror. Spending a few busy years in Boston might not be such a bad thing—in fact, it might be just the distance they both needed. She entertained a brief fantasy, and pictured a distraught Exeter, looking darkly handsome, as usual, and missing her terribly. More than he could have ever imagined.
Mia raised her chin, blinking rapidly. She would not cry—not again.
She tried to think of something cheerful—her newfound independence. The chance that she might have a new life in America. The picture in her mind quickly turned to a fledgling medical student alone in a strange country. Why, she didn’t know a single solitary soul in Boston. A chill went through her, and then the longing for him returned. She had hungered for him before they were intimate, but not with this kind of intensity. At times it seemed as though she had yearned for him since . . .
Forever.
She had weighed her choices over and over these past weeks. If she stayed here in London, her life would be nothing short of a living torture. To live with a man she loved, who did not wish to be her husband or lover—but her guardian.
Mia shivered.
“Would you like a warmer dressing gown, Miss—the quilted one perhaps?” The upstairs maid drew her from unhappy thoughts.
“I’m fine. Good night, Violet.” The little maid padded out of the room. Absently, Mia heard the soft click as the door shut. She exhaled a sigh—more of a soft moan, wrenched from deep within her body. Dear God, how she would miss him.
Certainly, the young woman who returned her gaze in the mirror appeared older and wiser, or was that because she wanted to believe it so? Mia reached up to unpin her hair. “I would like to help you with that—if you would allow me.”
She had thought the dark silhouette a mere shadow in the window. In the blink of an eye, he moved from her bedchamber to her dressing room. Mia stared at his reflection. “Good evening, Prospero.”
“Mia.” Their gaze met in the mirror. After every pin had been removed from her looped chignon, a mane of hair fell down her back, Gentle hands reached out and swept loose waves off her neck. Reverently, he bent and kissed her shoulder. “If I believed for a moment you could be mine, I would not hesitate to love you.”
Her heart palpitated rapidly, not in the way it did for Exeter, but there was no denying the attraction. Something dark inside her—the cat in her, presumably—sparked to him. “How could you know?”
“I know only what I sense from your heart—” Prospero’s breath drifted over her ear. “And your body. I have wanted you for some time now, Mia—to plunge deep inside you—feel those long legs wrapped around my waist.”
Mia spun around and slapped his face. “Get out. Exeter will be here any minute.”
The strangely handsome wizard stared—almost amused. Piercing silver black eyes squinted slightly as he evaluated her words. “He has not been in your bedchamber in weeks, why would he come tonight?”
She could feel him probe around in her thoughts, but he could only go so deep. To know her innermost feelings, he would have to allow her into his mind, something he would never do.
Mia breathed a sigh of relief. She had left Exeter’s study out of sorts and needlessly aroused. She had gone directly to her room, undressed, and waited for him to advise her on the finer points of pleasuring herself—not that she couldn’t muddle her way through on her own—but if this was the only way to get him into her bedchamber it would have to do.
Whether he wished to admit it to himself or not, Exeter had become aroused in his study and was almost embarrassed by it. Frankly, that infuriated her more than anything. And now—here was Prospero, ready to make love to her. The wizard brushed his lips over the edge of her ear and nibbled.
Mia moistened her lips. She entertained a dangerous thought. According to her friend Phoebe, there were times when men needed to be jostled out of a stupor of indifference and taught a lesson.
Prospero met her gaze in the mirror. “As I said earlier, I would like to help you with that—if you would allow it.” Mia wondered if she grasped his meaning—he understood her heartache and was willing help her.
“And what do you ask in return for such a favor?”
“You must convince Exeter to let me go free.”
“But”—she looked him up and down—“you are here; you are free.”
Prospero almost smiled. “A very persistent illusion.”
She searched his face. So open and honest tonight. As though he had laid himself bare. “Why do they fear you so? What did you do to them that makes them so fearful of you?”
“It is not what I did to them. It is what they did to my people. They fear my retaliation.”
“So you didn’t create those Outremer dregs—Reapers, Grubbers . . . and the Skeezicks?”
“I had to survive. Oakley and his gang of corporate thugs sabotaged all my efforts to repair the unraveling. He even convinced Victor to blow up the aether plants. And now they have in their possession the temperamental Moonstone.” He laced his gravely soft voice with an extra bit of irony. “It’s almost amusing.”
“Exeter mentioned problems.” Her head whirled. She had not been privy to much information about these alternate-world moguls, apart from their great struggle for power.
Prospero suddenly swept her into his arms and carried her into the bedchamber. “He is coming.”
He sat her on the bed and opened her dressing gown. She suffered an unexpected wave of modesty when he took a moment to admire her. “You’ve already seen me naked.”
“Yes, I have.” Prospero kissed her almost tenderly. “Forgive me, but I have to make this look good.” He slapped her across the face and she cried out.
“Whatever happens, don’t let the cat out,” he whispered. “Trust me, please.” He wrapped his fingers around her neck.
“Take your hands off her.”
Mia glimpsed Exeter’s tall silhouette enter the room. When she began to choke, Prospero lifted her up and flung himself behind her. “I go free and the girl goes free.”
Mia nodded, the fear in her eyes just as real as it looked. As this was no doubt part of this scheming wizard’s plan, she needed to be convincing. “Please, Exeter—he has promised to let me go.”
“Oh, he will let you go, all right.” Exeter fired a ball of violet-blue force much more powerful than he had used against Prospero in Paris, but then his energy had been drastically depleted by the explosion and cave-in. This time Exeter’s blast hit Prospero squarely in the chest and sent him flying across the room.
Mia tugged her wrap back on and hid behind the open door of the armoire. What seemed endless was probably over in less than half an hour. The two men traded salvos of potent energy back and forth until they were both exhausted. Once the aether dust settled, a glance about the room revealed the devastation. Furniture broken, windows shattered, shards of glass strewn about the floor from the bank of French doors. Tentatively, she ventured out from behind the safety of the wardrobe.
The Outremer wizard was the first to speak. “Cover your feet, Mia.”
Exeter frowned. “You do not have the privilege of saying protective things to her—not after you hit her.”
Prospero smiled this time. “I had to get you mad—fighting mad, deplete your energy so that you would have nothing left to force me back. You may have fooled everyone around you for years, Doctor Exeter—but you are a wizard. As powerful as I have ever seen and twice as intelligent. That is why I’m hoping you’ll hear me out.”
“But—” Exeter looked as though he might lunge at the man. “You were about to rape her.”
Mia slipped on satin slippers. “Pish-posh, I’m perfectly fine.”
She looked them over carefully. Both men had suffered bruises and scrapes but otherwise a
ppeared relatively unharmed. She had to do something before one of them hurt the other, badly. “Hear him out, Exeter.” She opened her bedroom door, and was surprised to see it didn’t fall off its hinges. Mia tightened her wrapper. “Come along, gentlemen, I would like a cup of sweet spicy tea—and you both could use a relaxer.”
The Outremer wizard raised both hands in surrender.
Exeter’s glared softened. “No more games,” he warned.
They picked up his medical kit on the way to the kitchen. Prospero sat quietly while Exeter examined him. “You need not worry about me. This”—Prospero pinched the torn flesh on his forearm—“is my double—a virtual copy.”
“Do you self-repair? Or will you need someone over there to attend to your wounds?”
“Someone is already taking care of me. They scrutinize my every move; for the past hour they’ve been observing the original equipment get flung around the cell I’m locked in. They’ve already sent a team over to find out what I’m up to. We’ll only have a few minutes to talk.” Exeter removed his shirt and Mia dabbed tincture and bandaged cuts without too many hisses and yelps.
Prospero talked fast, starting with the story of an ancient struggle between two powerful families—vying tribes of a sort—and then a devastating loss of aether: enough to begin the unraveling of their world. Someone had to be blamed—and since Prospero was in possession of the remaining aether, he was forced to defend it.
“The Moonstone has restored equilibrium because it is the right thing to do, but the stone will not bend to either side’s will. Oakley is trying to find a way to coerce me, bring us into some kind of false accord—but he fools no one, particularly the stone. Ask Phaeton. If you don’t trust me, I believe you will trust his instincts.”
The Miss Education of Dr. Exeter (Paranormal Investigator) Page 23
