“Good God,” Roger said breathlessly, fear and exertion making him a little light-headed as they broke out into the square from the alley. “How did he get in?”
“God damn if I know.” Wiley blistered the night air with his curses. “I should have been watching more closely. It’s why I was there. It’s my fault, Roger. It is.”
“What were you doing?” Roger barked at him. “Surely chess couldn’t have held your attention so closely.” He stopped abruptly and faced Wiley, who stopped as well. “Is Miss Jones still chaste?”
Wiley looked extremely unhappy at Roger’s question. “You think I’d go after a piece of that? Do I look stupid?” He shook his head. “She’s not for the likes of me and you know it. Too far above me. Wouldn’t waste my time or hers on that.” He paused, pursing his lips, and then burst out, “She was teaching me to read.”
Roger closed his eyes for a moment in relief. “Good,” was all he said. He turned and resumed his walk back to Harry’s. “We have to figure out how he got in. Mandrake was nowhere to be seen. I fear that he met with some foul play.”
“Door was locked, I know that,” Wiley told him. “Checked it myself after you left.”
“It was unlocked when we arrived home,” Roger told him grimly. “So either someone picked the lock or someone unlocked it for the intruder.”
“Christ,” Wiley muttered. “You think someone in that house is a traitor? Who wants the boy so badly, do you suppose?”
“I don’t know,” Roger told him grimly as they finally arrived back at Harry’s. “But I mean to find out. Send someone to Bow Street. Fetch Lavender.”
Harry was waiting for him, pacing in front of the door and holding Mercy in her arms. Roger didn’t try to put a name to the feelings that coursed through him when he saw the two of them safe and sound.
“Roger!” Harry cried out in stark relief. She rushed up and hugged him one armed, and he enfolded her and the boy in a tight embrace.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She nodded, her cheek pressed to his shoulder. “Yes,” she sniffed. “Mercy is frightened and Charlotte has a nasty bruise on her cheek and a bump on her head from where she hit the wall.”
Roger petted her hair, which was half out of its pins and tumbling down her back. “And Mandrake?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Roger looked over his shoulder at Wiley, who nodded and took off toward the back of the house.
“Come on,” he said, leading Harry to the stairs. “Let’s put Mercy to bed and then we can figure out what happened here.”
* * *
By the time Lavender left Harry’s house, the night was half over. Wiley slipped out with Lavender, the two deep in discussion about possible motives and who might be behind the attacks. It would seem they both had a mile-long list of possible suspects from the pool of London’s criminal class. Wiley had proved quite useful in eliminating some of the suspects based on inside information about who was dead and who’d left town, and of course Lavender knew who was already in jail.
Roger turned to take his leave of Harry and was struck by how defeated she looked, sitting on an olive green sofa in the drawing room. Lavender had grilled her about who she thought might be behind the attempts on Mercy, and she had maintained her ignorance, but Roger knew she was lying. What he didn’t know was why. Because it was abundantly clear she adored the boy. So why would she continue to put him in peril if she knew something that would help them?
“Don’t go,” she whispered. She was leaning forward, her elbows on her knees, her hands clasped together, her head down. She wouldn’t even look at him.
“It is nearly three a.m., Harry,” he said. “We both need some sleep.”
“I’m frightened,” she admitted in a tremulous voice. “I’m frightened and I don’t know what to do, and I don’t want to be alone.”
Dammit. She’d said the only thing that would make him stay. He sighed. “Fine. I’ll stay down here.”
She looked at him then. “No. That’s not what I meant. I meant I don’t want to sleep alone. I want you near me, and Mercy. Upstairs.”
Roger ran a hand through his already disheveled hair. He was a mess. His clothes were wrinkled and damp from his sprint through the fog, his shoes were destroyed, he was exhausted, and he could hardly think anymore. “I can’t stay upstairs with you, Harry. What would the staff think?”
“I don’t care,” she told him, rising from the sofa. She was incredibly pale, a fact made more apparent in contrast to the red dress she still wore. She looked like a defeated angel. Her hair was falling out of the elaborate style she’d worn this evening. He wanted to see it all undone and falling around her shoulders. “All right,” he said, not bothering to argue more. He’d confront consequences and questions tomorrow. Tonight he wanted to sleep beside her, too.
She didn’t look surprised, just relieved. She came forward and took his hand and led him from the room. Mandrake waited in the hallway. They’d found him in the back of the gardens behind the kitchen after a thorough search. It seemed the intruder had surprised him in the kitchen and knocked him senseless before dragging him out there. He was fine now, just a bruise forming on his cheek, and he looked as tired as they were.
“Shall I show Mr. Templeton to a guest room, madam?” he asked.
Harry started to answer but Roger jumped in. “Yes,” he said, “if you please. But first we shall walk Lady Mercer to her bedroom. She is still overset by this evening’s events.”
“Aren’t we all, sir?” Mandrake said. He put a hand to his head and began to turn away just as Roger stopped him with a gentle hand on his arm.
“Go to bed yourself,” Roger told him. “You’ve had a nasty evening as well. I’ll see the lady to her room and find my way.”
“Yes, sir,” Mandrake said. The man looked exhausted as he shuffled out of the room.
“Come on,” Roger told Harry, putting his arm around her as they walked toward the stairs. “You look about as done in as Mandrake.”
Harry bumped his hip with hers. “Not nearly so done in, I’m afraid. I’m practically vibrating with a sort of horrid excitement.”
“Yes, I know what you mean. Chasing the intruder through the streets tired me out, but I still feel as if I could chase him some more with this excess energy. Perhaps we ought to play chess.” He laughed a little desperately.
When they reached the stairs, Harry slipped out from under his arm and took his hand, leading him up the steps behind her. “Chess is not the game we are going to play.”
* * *
Harry watched as Roger walked around her suite of rooms, beginning with the sitting room. He looked out the window to the square below, then picked up the book of poetry sitting on the little marble table next to the gold silk-covered chaise she liked to lounge on. He put the book down and ran his hand over the back of the chaise, as if enjoying the feel of the cool silk. She did that all the time, too. It was irresistible the way the silk shone in the candlelight.
Finally he turned to the door leading to the bedroom. Harry hid a smile watching him actually straighten his shoulders before walking in, as if he needed to firm his defenses. The maid had left a lamp burning low, casting a warm glow throughout the room. Harry had decorated it to suit her tastes, of course, but was now wondering if that had been a good idea. It was a beautiful pale rose pink color scheme. The walls covered in pink and gold damask wallpaper, her bed piled high with pale pink linen, the furniture all gilt. She’d never thought she’d have a man in here. The extreme femininity of the room accentuated Roger’s dark maleness. Everything about him seemed darker against the room—his dark hair, his dark evening clothes, even his skin took on a swarthy cast. She fantasized he was the devil prowling through her rose garden, searching for her to do who knows what. She hoped a lot of who knows what, actually.
When he’d walked into the room, smelled her perfume, tested the bed with his hand, he turned to her where she still sto
od in the doorway, watching him. The entire room separated them, and yet the very intimacy of facing him across her bed struck her forcefully. She grew heavy with languor, a delicious anticipation filling her and yet soothing her at the same time. This felt right. Roger standing there watching her, wanting her, it felt as if this moment had been a very long time coming.
“Are you going to stand there all night, or come in?” Roger asked casually. In front of her dressing table, he turned a pale rose upholstered chair to face her and sat down.
“I’d like to come in,” she said.
Roger spread his arm out expansively. “It’s your boudoir,” he told her. “I am the interloper.”
“Hardly,” she said with a laugh and came in, closing the door behind her, enclosing them in the suddenly tight confines of her large bedchamber. She could smell him, smell the essence of male in the air of a room that had not seen one since she’d moved in. “I invited you. I want you here.”
“You have me. Now what?”
It was a challenge, plain and simple. He thought to fluster her, to make her think twice because he was giving her the reins. Foolish man.
“Shall I help you undress first, or vice versa?” she asked, sashaying across the room toward him.
His grin was wicked. “I should have known that ploy wouldn’t work. It never did when we were children, either. You always jumped into the fray instead of running when given the choice.”
“I am eager for the fray,” she said. She’d reached him now, but he continued to sit relaxed in the chair, not making a move at all. She slowly walked around the chair, her hand dragging up his lapel and over his shoulders, following her movement around the chair. He was hard beneath her palm, his muscles tense. He didn’t flinch or pull away, but neither did he reach for her.
She stopped behind him and leaned over his shoulder to unbutton his jacket. Their positions meant that her arms were wrapped around him, her breasts pressed against his back, her cheek a breath away from his as she concentrated on his buttons.
“Me first, hmm?” he murmured, sitting forward when she tugged his jacket open and then pushed it off his shoulders.
She didn’t answer. Words were superfluous in this situation. Instead she wanted feeling, touching. She stepped away for just a moment to drape his jacket over the dressmaker’s dummy next to her dressing table. When she stepped back, he’d unbuttoned his gray waistcoat and held it out to her. She draped it over his coat. She went back to her position behind him and pressed her palms against his chest, loving the feel of the heat and hardness of him through the cool slickness of his linen shirt. She rubbed her hands on him and he hummed low, letting his head drop back on his shoulders, his eyes closed and a small smile on his face. She enjoyed that as well, thrilled to the knowledge that he liked her hands on him. She gently tugged open the elaborate knot in his cravat and tossed it aside.
“How did you do that?” he murmured. He was so quiet, but it seemed a quiet born of contentment, not fear of discovery. “I can never get the blasted things undone myself.”
“I’m used to untying knots in thread and such,” she told him, her natural practicality taking over. “I shall be glad to help you out of yours whenever you need me.”
He chuckled lightly. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Next came his shirt. She pulled the tie and it opened halfway down his glorious chest. Tonight she was going to lie on that chest and rub her breasts against it until she went mad. She’d been dreaming of it for the last two weeks. “Sit up,” she told him, already pulling his shirt tail from his pantaloons. He raised his arms without being told and she pulled the shirt over his head, this time just tossing it in the general direction of the dressmaker’s dummy.
She was panting with desire this close to having him naked. But he stood up, and she was awash with disappointment.
“Don’t look like that,” he told her, cupping her cheek, the chair between them. “I merely wish to help you off with your gown before I go further. I’m afraid once I’m naked, things may get out of hand and that gown is simply too perfect to ruin.”
She laughed as she came around the chair to his side. “You are too perfect,” she said, kissing his cheek. “Willing to sacrifice yourself this way to save my clothes. You, sir, truly are a knight in shining armor.”
He indicated she should turn around by holding his hand up and twirling his finger in the air. She obliged. “Hardly,” he said as he undid her dress. “I’m just very aware of the probable cost of this gown and can’t bring myself to abuse it.” The dress went slack and he pushed it over her shoulders, kissing the sensitive curve of her neck as he did so. “And, of course, I don’t want to give up the fun of disrobing you,” he whispered against her skin. “I suppose that tarnished my armor a bit.”
“I thought I wasn’t allowed to be naked,” she whispered back. He paused and she cursed her wayward mouth. “Although I very much want to be naked,” she rushed to assure him. “Very much.”
She shimmied her hips a little and he let go of the dress so that it pooled around her feet. She stepped out of it and picked it up, draping it over the back of the chair.
“Good God,” he said. She glanced over in time to see him gazing at her with admiration. “You are even more gorgeous than I imagined you’d be, and trust me, I’ve imagined it quite a bit.”
Harry slipped out of her shoes. “Have you? So have I. I’ve never been naked in front of a man. Isn’t that odd?”
Roger looked taken aback. “Never? But … you were married.”
“For all that he took a young bride, my doddering late husband was stuck in the last century. He didn’t feel nakedness was appropriate between a man and wife, between any man and woman, actually. He was quite adamant about it, and always seemed slightly embarrassed when he had to bare himself in order to perform his duties.”
“Unbelievable,” Roger muttered, running his hand over his face with his eyes closed. He opened his eyes and waved a hand at her. “He had you. And yet he insisted you remain clothed during sexual intercourse?”
She nodded.
“The man was insane.”
She grinned and then raised her foot to rest it on the chair seat, pulling up her petticoat to unroll her stockings. Roger watched the entire dull proceeding as rapt as if she was demonstrating some new scientific discovery.
“So this is slow?” she asked, removing first one stocking and then the other before draping them over her dress on the back of the chair. She lowered her leg and turned around, peeking over her shoulder at him. “If you don’t mind?” she asked, and he immediately came forward to undo her corset. “I never imagined undressing could be so provocative,” she told him, shivering as his knuckles brushed against her back as he was untying her stays. “It always seemed so mundane in the past.”
Roger licked the back of her neck and then nipped her shoulder. “I will never find it so again.”
“Nor I.” She sighed with contented delight and leaned back against him as he let the loose corset fall to her feet. He fumbled at her waist a moment and then her petticoat joined the corset. She wore only her chemise now, a thin layer of light silk between his hands and her skin. He rubbed a hand over her stomach and rested the other at her hip, his rough hands catching in the silk. She didn’t care; she loved the feel of it.
He stepped away and she immediately missed his heat. She turned around and frowned at him. “I think it’s safer if you remain in that,” he told her solemnly. “I am at my limit right now.” Her desire warred with her common sense. She reached for the hem of the garment, but Roger shook his head. “I mean it,” he told her. “I will go if you remove it. I simply haven’t the control right now. It means something to me, Harry, to not take you completely.”
She blew out a frustrated breath. “Why? I don’t understand. I’m not untouched, Roger. And I want you.”
“I will give you all you could desire tonight, Harry, but not that. I can’t, and still respect myself in the morni
ng. Which is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard myself say, but there you have it.”
“Will you?” she asked in quiet desperation.
He understood her meaning and nodded. “Yes, I will. I promise. Now go and wait for me in bed.”
Chapter Twenty-one
She walked backward to the bed, not wanting to miss a thing, and Roger grinned at her. “I won’t keep any secrets,” he said in jest. “You can watch from over there.”
She turned away then, a sharp stab of guilt making her blush with shame. She was keeping secrets, wasn’t she? She hadn’t wanted to tell Lavender about her past with Faircloth, but she knew she had to tell Roger. She dreaded it. There was no way he’d forgive her. What man would? She’d willingly let her husband sell her body. Whether the price was her freedom or not didn’t matter in the end. At least it wouldn’t to another man. She didn’t want to see that awful look on Roger’s face yet, the look that branded her worse than a whore for what she’d done. But her conscience demanded she tell him, and so she would. But not until tomorrow. She’d have this night and face her demons tomorrow.
She pulled back the bed linens and climbed in, plumping the pillows behind her before leaning back to watch. Roger was just standing there, waiting.
“Ready?” he asked in mock seriousness. “I don’t want to frighten you with my manliness.”
She laughed as she knew he wanted her to, and truthfully, she felt a little lighthearted. Perhaps tomorrow she would face her doom, but tonight she would have Roger all to herself as she’d dreamed of since she was a girl. Well, perhaps not since she was a girl, since she hadn’t really known about this particular aspect of what they could enjoy together, but still. “I am ready. Do your worst.”
Samantha Kane Page 19
