The air left her in a “tuh,” sound filled with shock, disappointment, and most of all, impatience. “You owe me an explanation, and don’t say it’s Arabella because that is a false excuse.”
He couldn’t look at her; kept his eyes fixed on the dead ashes in the fireplace. “Worshipers of Zoroastrianism believe flames purify.”
“Oh for goodness sake, what do you need to burn?”
He fought a surge of bitterness. “The many, many stupid mistakes I’ve committed. And stop questioning me, woman. I tell you, you’re better off not knowing.”
Even with his back to her, he could feel the heat of her outrage. A long minute of silence passed before she retreated, her quiet footsteps booming in his ears like a death knell. She stopped by the entrance, and he allowed himself a glimpse at her back, stiff with animosity. The she whirled around. “Sins of the past I can forgive, my lord, but this selfish, cowardly behavior, I simply cannot.”
His Lordship's Darkest Secret: Chapter Seven
“Mrs. Gower, how are you feeling?” Claire closed the door to the chaperone’s chamber.
The older woman moved a chalk-white cheek off the pillowcase. “Oh,” she moaned, “the torments of hell. I have suffered the devil’s own torture.” Her skin sagged at the jowls, ragged as ripped paper.
“Poor lady.” Claire set a bowl of chicken broth on the bedside table. “I brought you something to make you feel better.”
“Not another of your distressful potions, I pray.”
A splinter of pain pierced Claire. “It’s broth,” she said, clearing her throat.
“What’s in it?”
“Chicken, some vegetables, and salt.”
“Your recipes always sound innocent, and then . . .”
Claire closed her eyes a moment, fighting to master her temper. Apparently, even her chaperone believed she’d caused the illness that swept the household. “This is just chicken soup,” she said gently. “And if you recall, all I made Arabella was a sedative, and at Lord Monroe’s specific request.”
Mrs. Gower pushed away a coil of gray hair matted on her damp forehead. “Don’t mind me, I’m just the chaperone instructed by your mother to protect your interests. Didn’t I say in plainest English not to brew your witchery?”
Trying to keep her hands from shaking, Claire held a spoonful up to Mrs. Gower’s lips. “You drink wine, do you not?”
The chaperone took the liquid into her mouth and scrunched her face as if it were sour. “Wine is made of good and proper grapes, it . . .”
“And my remedy was made of good and proper valerian, St. John’s wort and . . .”
Mrs. Gower turned her face from another spoonful and slapped her hand on the coverlet. “I’m much too weak to argue. The fact is, you’re tainted now. You may lose your chance with Lord Monroe, and all because you refused my humble advice.”
The arrow hit its mark. “Oh, but I followed your advice, and it did no good.”
“And exactly what do you mean by that?”
“I kissed him, and when we returned to the house, he was more distant than ever, and has remained so since then.”
Mrs. Gower tisked in disgust. “As if that were my fault. I didn’t instruct you to hurl yourself at him in a field, for goodness sake.”
Claire clunked the spoon back in the bowl and turned her back on Mrs. Gower. Fighting the urge to throw something, she wrung her hands with such force a knuckle cracked.
“Don’t make that unsightly noise,” snapped the woman.
Whirling on her, Claire exploded, “How can a sound be unsightly? You make no sense. You say silly, ridiculous things, and not a moment’s thought goes into them!”
“This is how you treat a poor, sick woman who’s done nothing but try and help? Who’s dispensed her every word for your good?” She pulled the covers to her chin.
Nothing showed above the quilt but Mrs. Gower’s pouting lips and resentful stare. Claire shut her eyes. The woman could try the patience of a saint, but Claire needed to consult someone and who else was there? A letter to her mother or sisters would take too long. Gathering her emotions, she straightened the linens on the bed. “I apologize for losing my temper.”
Mrs. Gower huffed.
“The fact is, I need your advice.”
“What was that, dear?”
Sighing, Claire perched on the satin quilt and took both liver-spotted hands into her own. “I said I need your advice. I don’t know what to do. Lord Monroe just announced to me… that he’ll never take a wife.”
“Nonsense,” barked Mrs. Gower, pulling herself upright in bed.
“He turns away from me; he battles demons, yet refuses to let me know what troubles him. So what do I do?”
A worried look passed over the woman’s face. “Have you noticed any physical problems?”
So far, what Claire had witnessed was Flavian’s very male excitement whenever they were near. “No, not in that respect.”
Mrs. Gower sucked in a breath. “I’m going to write your father’s solicitor. Let’s find out if there are any legal impediments to his heirs.”
A knot clenched Claire’s stomach. “But he has as much as told me I’m only here for his ward, and the girl now refuses treatment. I don’t want to stay.”
Like a turtle retracting into its shell, Mrs. Gower sunk low into the coverlet. “I’m far too ill to travel. We’ll simply have to stay.”
“Most of the household is already up and about. You should feel better by tomorrow, so I’ll arrange for the coach to London.”
“Oh no, child!” Mrs. Gower extended a hand and fanned her face weakly. “You’ve upset me.” She nestled further into the pillows. “A woman of my age and refinement cannot be compared to menials. No, no—expect to spend the week… perhaps two.”
“Two!”
“My heart is as weak as a mouse. Pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat it goes without the least fortitude.”
Claire leaned down to listen, but Mrs. Gower batted her away. “No, don’t bother. Do you think I don’t know how my own heart should sound? Besides, he’s a handsome man, not uninteresting to talk with. Surely you can survive his company while I recover.”
Ducking her head to avoid showing Mrs. Gower her frustration, Claire realized most of her mind was determined to go, though, a small sliver wanted to stay until he confessed. Something was wrong. Flavian loved her, she was almost certain of that, yet he won’t marry… Somehow she had to find out why, and then…and then… go to London… or convince him to trust her heart.
* * *
A warm breeze blew in from the south, lofting the curtains so gracefully they reminded Claire of dancers’ arms. She turned sideways on the pillow to watch. Nothing in her body wanted sleep—the night was too fine, and her elation at getting Arabella to take her medicine again grew with each recollection of Flavian’s smile.
Following a miserable dinner thick with viscous unhappiness, Claire lay awake in her bed, trying to calm her roiling thoughts. Dear God, how she wished she could be packed and leaving first thing in the morning.
A warm summer breeze lifted the curtains causing them to float as gracefully as a dancer’s arms. At home when she and her sisters were exquisitely happy or unbearably sad, they would gather on the lawn and dance like heathens to an imaginary hornpipe.
You were sick all night, she told herself. What you need is rest. She shut her eyes tight, but restlessness gobbled her resolve. “This is ridiculous.” With a few swift kicks, she bunched the covers to the end of the bed and stood on the cool floorboards. How lovely the wood felt compared to her inflamed emotions.
Donning a thin dressing gown, she padded barefoot down the marble stairs and out onto the dew-covered grass. The moon pierced the leaves of the copper beech near the garden like a pearl through black lace. In the distance, she spied the stone bridge, a smudge of gray against a dark skyline of trees. The lawn sloped toward the span, and she raced down, imaging her sisters with her, leaping into the air, pretending to be moth
s with their dressing gowns doubling as gossamer wings.
Her flight took her over the bridge, where she ducked into a tree grove. When the light from the house disappeared from view, she sent her knees high stepping in a dance to the silent hornpipe of her youth. Holding the sides of the gown out to billow in the air, she kicked toward the clouds. Faintly at first, came hints of elation as she conjured her giggling sisters dancing in circles.
“Does the goddess have an incantation as well?” a masculine voice said.
“Oh my word!” Claire stopped in mortification as Flavian emerged from the darkness of the trees. “You frightened the life out of me.”
“What brings a sprite to the glen this night?”
Her heart beat hard in her chest, harder, as he approached. Just the anticipation of his warmth of him made her shiver. “No one was supposed to see.” She took a step back. “Imagine the uproar if a servant caught me dancing ’neath the moon.”
“Like a magical sylph.”
“More like a witch, they’d say.”
“An enchantress.”
Claire bowed her head. Did he know a thousand conflicting voices bellowed in her mind? Had he any idea of the chaos he caused? Backing farther away, she started across the lawn. “Were you restless this evening, too?”
He followed her from the shelter of the trees.
A light went on in the servant’s quarters. He took her upper arm. “Not that way. Let’s walk into the woods a little further.”
“We shouldn’t.”
“Just for a moment.”
“Mrs. Gower might claim I’ve been compromised. You wouldn’t want an inconvenient attachment.”
He huffed a bitter note. “The inconvenience would be solely yours.” Abruptly his hand left her, and he strode swiftly toward the blackened foliage.
Did he expect her to follow? She should turn her back and go inside… But then she found herself trotting after him. “Why do you say such things?” she called.
He shook his head, and his outline disappeared against the thick woods.
“I wish you’d speak to me.” She sensed rather than saw where he might be, and though the inky shadows made her fearful, she kept moving forward. In the gloom, his white cravat appeared at the edge of the forest, and he was waiting. When she joined him, he took her hand and pulled her along as he walked.
“You’ve led a sheltered life, Lady Claire, for all your doctoring. Some mysteries are best left unsolved.”
“You cannot say you’ll never marry and send me away. Do you know nothing of a woman’s heart once she’s been kissed?”
Flavian kept walking, the only sound his footsteps sending tremors through the ground. He continued toward a clump of evergreens, their foliage so dense they appeared like a black wall. He plunged between two pines, taking her along a trail she couldn’t see. In the next second, her right foot landed on something sharp.
“Ouch!”
“What’s happened? Are you all right?”
“I’ve stepped on a thorn, I think.”
“Hold onto me.” Flavian guided her hand to his shoulder and inspected her foot, feeling along the instep with gentle fingers.
“A holly leaf,” he said, pulling it out.
“Holly?”
“We’ve got quite a lot of it. The ancestors planted holly as winter fodder for the livestock.” In one swift motion, he lifted her into his arms.
“Oh,” cried Claire, equal parts thrilled, startled, and annoyed.
“I won’t have your toes accosted by prickers,” he said, heading deeper into the thicket.
Her arm had gone around his neck when he lifted her. She tried to resist touching the exposed skin there, but the tickle of hair on her hand sent ripples of want through her. A curl wrapped around her finger. Then, because she couldn’t stop herself, she rested her cheek on his chest, felt the clavicle beneath the fabric of his coat, inhaled his musky scent, and lost herself in the exchange of heat between their bodies.
He stopped in a clearing but didn’t put her down. “The last time I was truly happy was in this glen,” he said.
“You make it sound like that was ages ago.”
“It was. Before I entered the navy, to be exact. My brothers and I practiced military tactics here. I knocked Lancelot off that log.” He swung Claire around to see a dark trunk only slightly blacker than the woods beyond it. He pivoted again. “And the youngest of us, Percival, stabbed me with a stick right in the calf over there. I escaped further attack by climbing a grape vine and bringing the whole thing down on their heads. Mother was not pleased with the purple stains.”
He lowered her so carefully to the forest floor that the duff felt like down beneath her bare feet.
“Did you win?” she asked.
“Win what?”
“The battle with your brothers.”
“Oh no. Someone always gets hurt and tells on you, so even if you do beat them, you get a scolding.”
He sighed, looked around the glen, then bent over and kissed her on the cheek. She stumbled backward.
He backed away too. “I apologize. It’s just… one last time, I wanted this spot to be happy for me.”
Bowing her head, she whispered, “So I make you happy?”
“More than anything.”
She didn’t look up. The pain of his earlier icy behavior stabbed, but even its sharp tip came tinged with yearning, and that yearning grew, seizing her like hunger—a force beyond reason, or experience, or history. Her need to feel his breath hot on her cheek, her neck, her lips, hurled against her quiet nature, her lineage, and all the rules of society that had ever held women in check. Let him send her away; she would leave him to regret losing her, and that was the best she could hope for. In two steps, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed the smooth flesh beneath his ear. “Don’t stop me,” she breathed, her lips brushing his flesh, “Let this be the place where I was happy once, too.”
A tremor shook his frame. His lips met hers, at first tentatively, and then with increasing ferocity as the part of him that had held back lost its emotional battle. His mouth came hard against hers, starved and driven. This would be the last goodbye—the last moment before he marched back into the ranks of doomed men, and she went to Almack’s to be chosen as carefully as any horse for its conformation and bloodlines.
Her teeth parted and his tongue wound with her own, and she reveled in the perfect liquor, the alchemist’s gold, of their combined chemistry. His muscles tightened as he lowered her toward the ground, knees bending until he knelt, his mouth never leaving hers. Like a precious jewel, he placed her among the fallen leaves, the spiny grass, and the velvet moss. Sweet smells of decay, of somber dirt, and of new growth filled her senses. The throbbing in her body caused her to twist on her fairy bed—a forest wanton, a nymph of the wooded glen.
He tore off his coat, and lifting her hair, tucked the garment beneath her head. Sighing, and with the reverence of one who is touching something of incalculable value, he trailed his hand down her cheek, her neck, and over the thin cotton of her night shift stopping at the slope of waist to hip bone. “This,” he said, his voice husky, “feel this. It’s the most extraordinary curve in nature.” Taking her hand, he guided it down, until together they stroked the rise of her hip. “Remarkable, isn’t it?”
“I never noticed.”
“And this.” Still holding her hand, he crossed her arm over her chest and caressed her ribcage. “Feel the corrugation.” Ever so lightly, his hand brushed the side of her breast. “There’s a softening here where a babe could nuzzle against your side.”
She sensed he was about to withdraw. Without thinking, she turned and pressed her bosom to his palm. She couldn’t look at him, ashamed of the boldness of her body, but his warmth sent rivers of heat through every limb.
He emitted a soft breath. With his thumb he traced the outline of her nipple, already jutting hard against the night shift.
“Oh God,” he murmured, lying bes
ide her. With the urgency of a man seeking salvation, he cupped her breasts and buried his face in her cleavage, kissing one then the other, then her throat, her nipples; his hands racing over her back, finding and exploring the plains of her skin.
Beltane fires burned deep within. Fires that caused the ancient Celts to dance—fires that sent virgins into the fallow fields to couple, procreate, and indulge their too-heavy lust. Her breath tore from her lungs in gasps of sensation as his hands lifted her night shift, ran wildly up her thigh, and pressed against the hard ridge of her hip. She wanted him to touch her there in the cleft between her youth and womanhood, longed for the shaft that pushed against her body to be free of its layers of constricting fabric, yearned to be pierced by the manhood of Lord Flavian Monroe, master of her heart.
With wild and hungry fingers, she tore at the buttons of his pants, pulling them down until he kicked them off in a jumble of boots and stockings. He rose to his knees and ripped off his shirt and cravat. In the starlight, she caught the white length of his thigh, bisected by muscle. Her gaze drifted inexorably to the dark patch of hair between. It was like shrubbery around a great oak—his erection, the bell shape at the tip, the shaft, so clean and powerful. She thought it would be different—that she would find him ugly. At home, she’d been the midwife to baby boys, and had seen stallions in the field, but nothing had prepared her for how Flavian’s body made her thrum with excitement.
His arms came around her, but she held him back, pressing a hand against his chest, slowing their frantic pace. Was it blood in her veins or the Beltane drums pounding in the night? Her gaze roved from the muscles in his chest to the sculpted arms, to his flat stomach with its dusting of hair, and down to his manhood again. “You’re beautiful,” she whispered.
She got to her knees and kissed his neck, his chest. Her tongue lingered on the dark orbs of his nipples, which rose to her lips.
Her Perfect Gentleman: A Regency Romance Anthology Page 84
