The single most apt description of it might well be a “lair.”
And as it all belonged to Wilson, she suspected that despite the apparent disorder, he knew exactly where every last item resided, and could put his hand on each thing within a heartbeat.
The man himself was standing before a large blackboard on an easel, staring intently at a surface covered with so many equations it was more white than black, and for several seconds he didn’t even turn around.
“Miss Adela Ruffington, sir,” the manservant said, spare and solemn, and Wilson spun around, tossing a piece of chalk in the general direction of the groove where other pieces lay. It missed and went skittering and rolling into a corner of the room.
“Della, what a delightful surprise.” Wilson surged forward energetically, the panels of yet another dressing gown fluttering about him. This one was rather drab for him, a dullish gray-brown the color of a mouse adorned by several dabs of chalk dust here and there. He took her gloved hand in his and drew it to his lips, kissing it assertively through the thin kid leather. In her mind’s eye, Adela could see his servant’s eyebrows lifting behind her.
“Hello, Wilson,” she said coolly, on the point of wrenching back her hand when he finally released it. His pale eyes were dancing, already full of mischief, and she’d been in the room only a moment. His cool, detached demeanor from Rayworth Court seemed to have vaporized.
“Do sit down. Will you take tea?” He gestured toward a sofa, set by the longest window facing the garden. It was covered in newspapers, but he swept them aside and onto the floor, to join a variety of other papers and documents. His manservant swooped in, retrieved them and folded them, and set them on a nearby worktable. “Or perhaps coffee? I mostly take coffee.” Wilson hovered, clearly waiting for her to sit.
Adela wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to sit. Being off her feet in Wilson’s presence made her feel vulnerable, and she was vulnerable enough to him already with her precious drawings in his possession. Finally, though, she subsided, arranging the black barathea skirt of her sensible walking costume carefully as she settled. “Coffee would be very pleasant, thank you.”
“Teale, coffee, if you please.”
Teale sped silently away, closing the door behind him and leaving Adela alone in a room full of arcane mystery and gilded light, faced with a Wilson who was smiling in triumph.
“I knew we’d see each other again soon. I told you it wasn’t over.”
Straight to business then? Well, after Wilson’s fashion...
Adela knew she had to get a direct answer out of him, both in respect to the portfolio and maybe even the letters, but the glitter in his eyes and the overpowering sense of disgustingly male self-assurance that he exuded were already enough to make her want to punch him in the nose.
Either that or give in to the urge to hurl herself at him, to kiss him and touch him and a good deal more than that.
It was barely more than a day or so since she’d last seen him, yet to her chagrin she realized she’d also really missed him. Even in his dressing gown, with his shirt in dishabille and missing its collar, and yes, wearing his carpet slippers, he still looked so devilishly attractive he was almost edible.
His dark curls were slightly awry, as usual, as if he’d been running his fingers through them as he’d grappled with a knotty problem. Untidy as his hair was, it imbued him with an almost angelic quality, like Mercury from Botticelli’s Primavera, or a Renaissance princeling come to life in the modern world. Adela could almost imagine Wilson posing for such a work, in the manner of classical statuary, wearing a laurel wreath in those black locks and not a lot else. He certainly had the body for artistic modeling, although certain portions of it were far too abundant to be contained by the standard fig leaf.
Good grief, Adela, what is the matter with you? You shouldn’t be sitting here imagining Wilson naked. Get to business, woman. Retrieve what you came to retrieve, and effect your escape.
“Well, I don’t know what you think it is, Wilson, but if there ever was anything, it is most certainly over now,” she said, rushing out the words as she realized she’d been daydreaming and Wilson was eyeing her suspiciously. “I won’t beat around the bush. I’m sure you know exactly why I’m here, and I’d like my belongings back immediately, if you don’t mind. And then I won’t trouble you any further.”
“Whatever are you talking about, Della?” The devil! His expression was so provocative. He was playing with her again, like a sleek dark cat with a mouse, punishing her purely for entertainment. “And surely you’re not going to leave without sampling Teale’s coffee? He makes a rare brew, and he’ll be hurt if you don’t at least try one cup.”
Despite Wilson’s vexing and befuddling behavior, the prospect of good coffee was ridiculously tempting. Mama didn’t often serve coffee, as she claimed it was too exciting to the senses of young ladies, and bad for the constitution, but Adela adored the powerful beverage. Sofia Chamfleur always had the most delicious French coffee on hand, and that was where Adela had gained her taste for it. The beverage Lady Southern served had also been adequate, and had only primed Adela’s longing.
“One cup, then. And stop being evasive. Please give me my portfolio back. I know you purloined it somehow while we were at the Rayworths’. And I’d also like anything else belonging to my family that you might have lifted.”
Wilson frowned and Adela’s stomach dropped. She’d hoped against hope. They’d been such long odds, but she knew from his face he hadn’t taken the letters.
“Well, you have me bang to rights, cousin, in respect of the portfolio. I broke into your room and your carpet bag and took it, I admit that.” He shrugged. “But on my life, I didn’t take anything else. I promise you, Della. Believe me. I had a hankering to take one of your shifts, as a fetish object to fondle when you’re not near...but I managed to resist that temptation.”
Heat flashed through Adela’s body. She didn’t need to be told what Wilson would have planned for her shift. Gentlemen’s foibles and peccadilloes were the premier topic of conversation and amusement among the ladies of the Sewing Circle, and she could easily picture Wilson naked on his bed, rubbing her garment against his loins.
Enough of that! Sybil’s letters!
“You swear that’s all you took?”
“I do swear it, Della. Why, what else has gone missing? Something of yours? Something precious?” He laid his hand on her arm, his expression intent, but suddenly more serious. “Tell me, and I’ll do what I can to help you retrieve it.”
She believed him. He was a curious conundrum of a man, precocious and arrogant in some ways, but fundamentally worthy in others. If it were possible to tell him, she had no doubt he would help. But the fewer people who knew about Sybil’s indiscretions, the better.
“It’s nothing. Nothing of importance. One loses things all the time.”
His silver-gray eyes narrowed, but he seemed to accept that.
“So...” he murmured, sliding his palm down her arm, then taking her hand and removing her bag from her grip and setting it aside. That done, he plucked at her right glove, easing it off, then followed with the other, tossing them after the bag. Adela tried to shake him off, but somehow she couldn’t resist when he enfolded both of her hands in his.
“Don’t try to bamboozle me, Wilson. I came here for my portfolio, nothing else. What happened between us in the country was an aberration only. It won’t happen again.”
“Is that a fact?” Not looking at her face, Wilson examined her hands as if they were rare artifacts, tracing his fingers over one palm, then the other. “How do you propose to induce me to return your drawings to you, then? Have you suddenly become versed in safe-cracking in addition to all your other talents?” Still smiling, he nodded to something she hadn’t noticed before—an enormous strongbox in the corner of the room. It was painted green, massive and impenetrable, with what looked like a numbered dial next to the keyhole. Some kind of advanced technological lock?
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“Is that where you keep all the items you’ve stolen from ladies? If so, you must be a considerable robber.” Indeed, it was an exceptionally large safe. She supposed he must keep the mechanical designs that he worked on for the government, and for wealthy clients, inside it.
“No, alas not. I have no provocative treasures in there, other than yours. But I do have other items of value. Certain blueprints and specifications. Secret projects for the government and for various captains of industry. All priceless if they get into the wrong hands.”
Just as she’d expected.
“I don’t doubt it. But I can’t see why you would secrete my portfolio among such treasures. It isn’t priceless at all, except to me.”
His fingers tightened around hers. “It has great value to me...as trade goods.” He conveyed her right hand to his lips and kissed the palm slowly, in that lascivious way he’d employed so effectively back at Rayworth Hall.
Adela fought against a shudder of desire. So that was his game? She didn’t know whether she was appalled or excited. Probably both, and in equal parts. This close to Wilson, her body had a rebellious streak that defied all her qualms and her outrage. Already, everything was stirring, heating, hungering, growing desirous of the pleasures he’d provoked in it so recently...and for more, oh, dear, so much more.
No!
Adela stiffened her spine. Snatched back her hand from him.
“Why would you say something like that, Wilson? Can’t you accept my decision?” She cast around for her gloves and bag, but somehow he’d kicked them away. She had to go, but how to get the portfolio before she went? “I’m not prepared to be some kind of perverse erotic experiment for you. You can keep the drawings. I don’t care.... They don’t incriminate me, and I doubt if the subjects themselves are concerned. They might even increase in popularity. Expand their clientele...”
Wilson pursed his lips, his face twisting as if he’d tasted something unpleasant. Or as if he was compelled to do something he didn’t want to.
“You do realize that this man brothel your friend runs is far from legal?” His glinting eyes narrowed. “I have friends in the judiciary, Della...and friends in low places, too. I’ve a shrewd idea of the parties involved, and it would be a simple matter to inform the appropriate authorities. My word would be taken, believe me. And with supporting evidence.” He nodded toward the safe, and the pictures within.
Angry to start with, Adela boiled with red rage. Her hand flew up to strike him, but he snatched ahold of it again, his grip implacable.
“You are despicable and hideous, Wilson. How could you threaten such a thing? What have any of...of my friends ever done to you? Have you never heard of live and let live?”
“Indeed I have, Della, indeed I have.” His hand tightened, containing her, and when she attempted to land a blow with the other, he grabbed that, too. “It’s a maxim I normally espouse wholeheartedly.” His fingers were locks on her wrists. “But not if it’s a case of you preferring to take your pleasure with naked gigolos, such as the gentlemen you’ve drawn so magnificently, instead of me. In that event you drive me to the most extreme and ruthless of measures. I can’t help myself.”
Snagging both her wrists in one hand, he took her by the shoulder with the other and brought her face to his. “Let me touch you, Della, or let your friends suffer the consequences.”
* * *
WHAT ON EARTH is the matter with me? This is abominable. Why am I behaving like a monster?
The look on Adela’s face made Wilson want to enfold her in his arms and say that he was sorry and that he’d never dream of doing something so vile and reprehensible.
The whole situation was absurd, and he the most absurd thing about it. He did care about Adela, as much as he believed himself capable of caring about anyone, and as a person who believed himself enlightened, he should have been the last man to deny a woman the chance to fulfill herself in whatsoever way she chose.
Yet, faced with her, he was primitive. A savage beating his chest and roaring with defiance over his “possession.”
Those drawings. Those men. They’d pleasured her. They’d fulfilled her. Handsome faces and handsome bodies. Clever hands that had touched her intimately, and with far more skill than he’d ever wielded on their own first encounter, seven years ago.
They’d made her cry out in ecstasy, made those eyes that were spitting fire at him now go blank with lust, and the thought of that made him boil up, incapable of rational, reasonable thought.
He had to make her forget them, and to do so he had to blot them out by exceeding anything they’d done.
Because you’ve blotted out Coraline for me, Della. One brief interlude and you completely negated her, the woman I once thought I might marry.
That was another thorn in his primeval paw. Without even trying, Adela had reduced what he’d idiotically believed was the grand passion of his life to little more than a forgettable folly.
“Very well, then, have me!” she all but growled at him, not even blinking. She was panting, though. With anger? Or was it desire? Her shapely lips were parted, the lower one moist. She was so succulent he wanted to devour her.
Just as he pressed forward, so did she. Their mouths met as if they were perfectly engineered to engage. He gasped when her tongue pressed immediately between his lips and his teeth, seeking his.
Goddamn, she’d ever been the pragmatist. Now she was going to wring the best out of him in the course of achieving her goal. If he hadn’t already been kissing her, he’d have laughed out loud. Bravissima!
He let her master his tongue, loving the fight in her. She was caught in his hold, and fully aware of his greater strength and his particular skills in subduing an opponent, but still she defied him. Vanquished him, even though he was the one with her hands captured tight.
His cock was an iron bar, aching and agonized.
Right. Now. I can’t wait.
But as he released her, and moved to take her in his arms to woo her rather than commandeer her, a sharp rap on the door made him curse into her mouth.
Goddamn the bloody coffee!
* * *
ADELA FROZE. Oh, no, Teale was here with the coffee. It should have been a relief, the way that stopped Wilson completely in his tracks, but instead it was a frustration.
“Come!” called out Wilson again, and the door swung open. Teale took the tray from a small table in the corridor and strolled in, placing the fragrant coffeepot and all its accoutrements on a map chest just to Wilson’s right.
“Will there be anything else, sir?” The servant’s voice was silky. Did he suspect his master of having an assignation with this mysterious woman in black who’d never visited him before? There was no twinkle in Teale’s bland eye, but who knew?
“No, nothing, thank you, Teale. I’ll not need you or any of the other servants for the rest of the day. Simply tell cook to prepare cold cuts on a tray, and leave it in the dining room. You can all take a trip to the music hall, if you wish. Use the money from the household kitty and I’ll reimburse it tomorrow.”
“Thank you, sir.” The servant did smile then, but as if with simple pleasure in the kindness of his master. His step seemed lighter as he left the room and closed the door.
What are you doing, Wilson? Emptying the house so we won’t be disturbed.
Adela’s belly trembled, not in alarm, but with excitement.
“So? Clearing the house so you can have your way with me?”
Wilson regarded her out of the corner of his eye while he attended to the coffee. “Yes, precisely that. Why, have you changed your mind?”
Had she? In her heart and soul, she really didn’t think he’d do anything to threaten Sofia and her establishment, but still, there was a niggling suspicion inside her that he might have changed since his days as the provocative but high-minded youth she’d once adored. Life might have soured his principles over the years, so she had to give herself to him to be sure.
You’re
making excuses for yourself, Della. Why lie? You want him...you want pleasure, and you’re entitled to take what you want for yourself. It might be a secret, but you’re an emancipated woman.
“Not in the slightest. Shall I disrobe now?” She plucked at her hat, sliding out the pins and removing it, then stabbing them back in before flinging it in the general direction of an armchair. Not even bothering to see if it had found its target, she started on the buttons down the front of her bodice.
Wilson stayed her hand.
“Much as I’d like to see your delectable body, Della, do drink your coffee first. It’s rather good and you’ll find it invigorating.”
Her fingers stilled, buttons unfastened to the lace-trimmed edge of her chemise beneath. She was trussed up today, corset and all. Mama always objected stridently if Adela attempted to leave the house in her rational apparel, despite tolerating it—under protest—in the confines of home.
“Why, is it loaded with exotic aphrodisiacs to make me pliant?”
Wilson laughed, handing her a small cup, then offering the cream jug. Adela nodded, accepting a little, but refusing sugar.
“No, but if you want a love potion, I can easily make one up for you,” he replied. “There are a number of herbs and compounds most efficacious on that score.”
“Is there anything you can’t make, brew, design or imagine? It’s as if you fancy yourself a modern da Vinci with your cornucopia of knowledge.”
“I simply use the gifts bestowed on me, Della. Just as you do yours.” He sipped his own beverage unadulterated, no cream or sugar. “The gift of drawing and the arts of sensuality.”
“They’re all I have,” she said simply, tasting the dark rich coffee. It was so devastatingly strong that it almost made her eyes water, but also delicious, and as predicted, invigorating.
Portia Da Costa Page 18
