Concede the game?
Piety stood. “It’s not as bad as all that,” she said.
“To me,” he said, “it appeared very bad, indeed. I am disinclined to become involved, as you well know. But, in the very least, I can concede the wager.”
She opened her mouth to thank him, but he was gone—whipping out the door without a backward glance. Joseph trotted glumly behind him.
“Well!” The marchioness scowled at the empty door. “He is as useless a champion as ever there was. Everything will obviously fall to me, and it’s just as well, I suppose, considering who and what we face.”
Still dazed by Falcondale’s concession, Piety looked at the marchioness. “I beg your pardon, my lady? What shall fall to you?”
The marchioness did not answer. She issued orders to the room. “Bernard! Have Mrs. McGee send word to the staff at Garnettgate immediately. Prepare the house and kitchens and take on extra help. Expect our imminent arrival by next Friday at the latest. Myself and three guests, our personal attendants, and with a group of six or more arriving shortly after. Everything is to be to my exact specifications for a royal visit, Bernard. Be very clear. I will follow up with Mrs. McGee in the afternoon. But she must send a rider immediately, so tell her now. Go.
“Miss Breedlowe,” she said next. “Your role is now doubly important. Miss Grey and you shall accompany me to the dressmakers first thing in the morning. That beige relic of yours is hardly the color of unspoken superiority.
“And Miss Grey?” she said finally turning to Piety. “Head up! This is no time to lose heart. You marched into my library and looked me in the eye without a moment’s hesitation. Do not insult me by cowering before this peasant, with boorish manners and misplaced arrogance and a brain the size of an apple seed. Your new home is not yet ready. So be it. You and Miss Breedlowe will travel with Tiny and myself to my country estate, Garnettgate. In Berkshire. Splendid property. Beautiful this time of year.
“When the Americans arrive, instruct your bear of a carpenter to refuse them entrance at all costs, and inform them that, if they wish to see you, they may call as my guests to Garnettgate. Let them see how far poor manners and ingrate breeding will get them in a proper English manor.”
Piety gasped, disbelieving. “Guests at your estate? But, my lady.”
“You have little choice, Miss Grey, and you know it. It’s all settled. Let them bully you in my presence. I’d like to see them try.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Trevor received Piety’s final summons the day before she left for Berkshire. It was another note, passed through Joseph, and the mere sight of it—a telltale pink envelope clutched in the boy’s sweaty palm—set his traitorous heart on an unsteadying, triple-time pace. With an unsteady hand, he ripped open the letter.
My Lord Falcondale,
By now, you may have heard that the marchioness, in a gesture of untold generosity, has invited me to be her guest at Garnettgate, her Berkshire estate.
Once relocated, I may more comfortably wait out the worst of my home repairs and enjoy a more suitable venue to receive my mother and her party. For better or worse, Lady Frinfrock has promised an enviable family reunion, with all the pomp and circumstance necessary to impress.
But I digress. Although we have not spoken, I have seen you in and around the stairwell working with Mr. Burr. I shall never be able to thank you enough for this loan of time and expertise. They tell me you are the finest architect with whom they have ever worked.
I hope you have time to continue to guide them while I am away. I have taken your participation for granted, I’m afraid and have been lazy about securing another architect to take over when you can no longer advise. If you find yourself unable to finish the job, would you recommend a local architect who might take over? Perhaps if the task of hiring this person comes from you, we should not have quite so much trouble.
I depart for Berkshire tomorrow, a happy detail for you, I’m sure. Before I go, I should like to know your most current predictions for the house, for my budget—including some compensation for you—and whether or not you will be able to see the job through before you set sail. In keeping with your request that—above all—we no longer speak, I look forward to a response by your hand or word from Joseph.
Sincerely yours,
Piety Grey
P.S. I should add here that I plan to be in my solarium at three o’clock this afternoon in order to make some notes for the workmen. If it suits your schedule (and if you can possibly bear it), perhaps we could meet in person to pin down these remaining details in a less formal and more expeditious manner. Only, mind you, if you prefer. —P.G.
Trevor raced through the letter, loosening his suffocating cravat while he read. When he’d finished, he crumpled the letter into a wad and tossed it on his desk. He yanked off his cravat.
He’d suspected for days that such a missive would come; he simply had not known when. For all the anticipation it caused, not to mention the heart-pounding, mouth-drying anxiety he’d experienced when he finally received the bloody thing, he half expected it to incinerate on his blotter while he stared at it.
But, no. It simply sat there, as the laws of nature and sanity demanded, giving off a potently familiar aroma, all but glowing pink.
Sighing, he snatched it back up and flattened it, re-reading every line, lingering on the, I look forward to a response by your hand . . .
Ah yes, he thought. Let us write back and forth like devoted cousins, separated by miles but not memories.
No, no, and no.
He let the letter fall on his blotter once more and rose to look out the library window. The green of their adjoining gardens glowed in the morning sun and the glass of her solarium glistened in blinding reflection.
He rubbed the back of his neck, considering.
She wanted to see him.
“Joseph!” He bellowed for his manservant as he scooped the cravat from his desk. “Shave!”
It was hot in the garden at three o’clock, but Trevor dared not remove his jacket. Nor his hat. He was formally dressed and impeccably so—a detail that meant he’d expended ten-times more effort on this meeting than he’d cared to. But he was endeavoring to appear businesslike. Cool. Self-possessed. Handsome? Hardly. Although when Joseph held out his best jacket, he hadn’t argued. He’d drawn the line at gloves. It was one thing to appear formal, quite another to stand in the boiling sun of one’s own garden, dressed for the bloody opera.
The fact that he he’d made the effort to dress up at all was true irony. He’d been the embodiment of cool-handed self-possession his entire life, regardless of the clothes he put on his back. Everyone knew him to be serious, prepared, businesslike—whether the business had been caring for his mother or trailing behind the flamboyantly dressed Janos Straka—he was a no-costume-required sort of fellow.
Only now, when faced with the green-eyed, quick-tongued, curve-enhanced perfection of Miss Piety Grey, had he been reduced to dressing the part and pacing anxiously on his overgrown garden path, sweating, and vowing to himself that he would not touch her.
The door to her foggy solarium rattled open at five past three, and she emerged alone, smiling when she saw him. She stole a look around both her garden and his and then motioned him inside the glass room.
Although he considered himself to be well acquainted with practically every structure found in Western design, from library to larder, he could honestly say he had never been inside a proper solarium. His mother had kept—and subsequently ignored—a small greenhouse when he was a boy, but this was something else entirely. The most striking feature was a great mosaic of tiny tiles in blues, grays, and white that had been laid in an intricate pattern spanning the length of the floor. At the walls, the mosaic climbed upward, extending the design until it met towering glass windows incased in age-greened copper panes. The windows, age-fogged and stained with condensation, still managed to filter sun into the room, casting it in warm and bright light.
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All around the room, iron counters girded various areas with no specific order, housing dirty gardening tools, pots, and rusty watering cans. In the center of it all sat the room’s showpiece: a large, raised fountain mosaicked in the same cool colors, now long dry and caked with mossy residue. The side of the fountain was high and flat, creating a seat from which to watch the water, or a ledge, perhaps, for potted plants.
“Now do you see why I bought the house?” she asked, watching him study the room.
“I will never see why you bought the house, but you will have a brilliant sanctuary when it is restored.”
She nodded and nosed around. He allowed himself to stare at her, knowing it would likely be the last time. She’d worn a teal-colored dress that seemed to meld into the blue-green shadows of the room. Her hair fell in soft waves down her back. He thought he would travel the world and never see a woman as beautiful as she looked right now.
“You decided to meet me,” she said, suddenly looking up. Her voice echoed in the room, and she continued in a lower strain. “I wasn’t sure . . . ”
“I may be slow to learn,” he said, matching her tone, “but eventually I do catch on. To oppose you is futile.”
She laughed. “I never meant to bully you.” Trevor could not resist smiling along. He snatched the hat from his head and cast around for the least dirt-strewn surface.
“Let me be honest,” she corrected herself. “I did mean to bully you. But I never intended for you to realize you were being bullied.”
“So that’s your game, is it? Smile so sweetly and ask so nicely; your victim never realizes he’s being bent to your will? Why not put that impossible will of yours to use,” he said solemnly, “on your mother?”
She made a dismissive sound and looked at the glass panels of the domed ceiling. “Yes.” She laughed bitterly, shaking her head in a silent no.
“What? She’s impervious to your infamous sugar-coated determination? This, I cannot believe. No one is that tough. You brought me to heel, after all, and I don’t do anything that I don’t have to do, not anymore.”
She shook her head again.
“Look,” he continued, tossing his hat on a countertop. “Joseph has said that you’ve tied yourself in knots about her arrival. If the money is yours, Piety, stand your ground and don’t give it a second thought. She is merely one woman. If your father left the money to you, she cannot force you to do anything you do not wish. And certainly not marry someone against your will. Not you, of all people.”
“So you say,” she said, nodding her head.
“That’s the weakest acquiescence I believe I have ever heard. And it’s nothing like you. Come now.”
She chuckled sadly. “Let’s just say that the strength of my will becomes a disadvantage when faced with Idelle.”
He cocked his eyebrow at her, unconvinced.
“She can be very cruel,” she continued, looking down. “I find myself in a very small, very demurring place when she—”
“I was cruel. Did that stop you? I’ve bullied an army of Greeks thugs with more success than I ever caused you to even slow your step.”
“You were never cruel. You were testy. Irritable. Blustery. But never cruel.”
“You make me sound like an old woman. No wonder the Greeks let me go. No wonder you succeeded.”
“I succeeded because what I wanted was not particularly precious to you. You had the ability to help me, and you did. But the thing that Idelle wants so badly is a great fortune. A great fortune and control—of me—which is nearly as important. She has wanted to control me from the very moment I endeavored to assert my own will. And now that she has discovered her new husband is not nearly as rich as she thought? My fortune will be essential to her. I cannot smile my way out of this one.”
“Or kiss your way,” he said, stealing a look. Their gazes locked and combusted. He turned away.
“I never kissed you,” she said to his back. “That was entirely you. Now you behave like an old woman. Ha! As if I was trying to take advantage of your innocent sensibilities. If it had any effect at all, the—” She stopped and began again. “Our intimacy only undermined the urgency of the help I have needed from you.”
He turned back to her. “It didn’t hurt.”
“Well, that’s not what I intended. Now you’re embarrassing me.”
“But surely you know that this is why I’ve stayed away,” he said, giving her a hard look. “Tell me that you know this. It has nearly killed me not to see you, but the road on which we so recklessly traveled would only lead to trouble for you. For us both. I stayed away to save us both a world of bother. Or worse.”
Her voice was raw. “Then I suppose I should thank you.”
“No, you should not.” He sighed before striding to the ledge of the fountain and taking a seat, careless of the dust and grime. “I’ve made a shambles of this entire situation. From the beginning. We both know it. Miss Breedlowe knows it. Likely the marchioness could expound on the topic if asked. I should have finished what I began or, since we both know that was never going to happen, I should have never begun it in the first place. There is no suitable excuse. You are a beautiful girl, clever and bright and happy, and you test the outer limits of my self-control. But I cannot—”
“Stop,” she said, breathless, and placed two fingers across his mouth. “Please stop. Do not say it again. I know. You’ve made yourself very clear. You do not want to connect. I understand.”
He grew quiet, just as she bade, but not because there was nothing left to say. The pads of her fingertips struck him mute, soft and cool on his face. He looked into the deep green of her eyes—eyes somehow greener, smokier, more alive in the cool, gray solarium. He had sworn that he would not touch her but he had not counted on her touching him. And, dear God, not on the mouth.
“Piety?” He covered her wrist with his hand.
She tried to pull away. Slowly, she began to shake her head.
He tugged and she dropped, instead, into his lap.
“Please,” he whispered against her ear. “I must find a way to say good-bye. This will be the end. I will be gone when you return from Berkshire, and I’ll never bother you again. But you cannot leave without one more . . . without . . . ”
She was pitifully easy to convince, turning her face and finding his lips, answering him with a light kiss, so sweet, so soft, with lips closed, eyes closed, hands tentatively on his shoulders.
He returned it with a ferociousness triggered by their agonizing separation. He devoured her, opening, licking, tasting. He slid his legs in front of him, lowering her position on his lap.
She giggled, holding on as he shifted her, and he laughed too. But then the laughter faded, the smile, the world. He ravaged her mouth, filling his hands with her silken hair, making a shambles of the soft, full waves. Reluctantly he left it, feeling his way downward. Desperate hands, possessive hands.
She leaned in, meeting him kiss for kiss. She made quick work of his jacket, unbuttoning it and sliding beneath to knead the muscles of his back. He sighed and released her with one hand so he could rip the jacket entirely away, hurling it over the pike of the fountain.
“Piety.” He spoke against her mouth. “I have . . . ” He broke off and kissed her. “I have wanted this since the chess.” More kissing. “You tortured me every day for a bloody week. Every day. You did it on purpose.” His voice sounded heavy and coarse.
She sighed, twisting closer. “I was merely playing chess.”
“You were punishing me, and I deserved it.”
He trailed kisses down her neck, sucking, wishing he hadn’t shaved, wishing he could rub the rough stubble of his beard against her skin and leave a chafe. Mine, he thought. Entirely mine.
“Promise me,” he said, his voice raspy, “that you will not let them touch you.” He kissed her again, harder. “Limpett. The others. Promise me.”
He returned to her mouth for a quick kiss and then buried his face in her hair, kissi
ng the soft, curl-wisped skin behind her ear. “You are stronger than that.” He breathed in the scent of her. “You needn’t be handled.” He kissed her again. “Not one finger.” He returned to her mouth, kissing, tasting, allowing his mind to float away on the warm, languid pleasure of it.
“What did you just say?”
“So beautiful.” He left her mouth and trailed kisses to her chin, neck, throat. The sleeve of her gown enclosed her shoulder with a snug little cap, but only barely. The slightest nudge and it would fall away.
Piety spoke again. “Did you just tell me to defend myself against Edward Limpett? Against the brothers?”
She dropped her hands from around his middle and grabbed the shoulder of her gown. In an angry movement, she yanked it up.
“Tell me,” she continued, her voice rising still, “that you did not just say, you will not let them touch you. Tell me.”
Did not just say? He grabbed the edge of the fountain, trying to focus.
“Excuse me,” she said sharply and rolled to the side. She left him.
Trevor dropped his head in his hands and swore. “I’m sorry.”
It was the truth. He was sorry. He ran his hand roughly through his hair and then shoved up. How in God’s name were they discussing this again?
“Do not apologize again,” she said from behind him. “I hate it. You’re not even sorry for the correct thing. It’s clear that you don’t even know why I’ve stopped.”
“Of course I do! You’ve stopped because it needed stopping. Because it was—we were—getting out of hand. Because I’m a blackguard, and you’ve taken it as your life’s work to torture me. Because we were ripping at each other’s clothes against the grime of a ruined fountain!” He laughed without humor. “No, Piety, I don’t know why, but how lucky for us both that you did.”
“It was nothing about the kiss,” she said.
“The kiss was inexcusable.”
“The kiss was lovely, but hardly your best work. I preferred our first kiss. In the music room. The afternoon you were trying to scare me.”
The Earl Next Door: The Bachelor Lords of London Page 14
