by A. G. Howard
I broke our kiss to catch a breath. While he nuzzled my head, I let my mouth wander to his throat and tasted the roll of his growl with my lips.
My nose nestled in his soapy-scented hair as his kisses followed my temple, my jaw, then my necklace’s chain, his beard tickling my skin on the descent. Reaching my chest, his tongue plunged beneath my chemise’s neck and grazed the taut tip of one breast with velvet-heat. I cried out.
He drew back, assuring I could see him speak. “We must be quiet.”
The wet fabric clung to my skin with a chill that tightened the tip of my breast—a hurt so deep it was pleasure. As if sensing my torment, he stared at his own hand as it tugged at the chemise’s blousy neck in an effort to free my flesh.
Shyness overtook and I clasped his palm against the swell.
He restrained himself, a struggle taking place behind his eyes. “I don’t mean to rush you.” His lips trembled. “I’ve searched so long for my little fallen angel. Then to find her all grown up—an alluring, intelligent, brave young woman. I’m overcome by the grace of it all.”
Then I remembered how he’d waited for me. Taken no other lover in his life. That this was all new to him, too.
The epiphany fanned a fire I could not contain—a smoldering blaze that laid waste any residual sense of virtue. I became the seductress: my fingertips tangled in the dark furring at his chest, skated past the coppery beads of his nipples, then raked through the trail of hair on his rippled abdomen. As I moved, he released the fastenings of his shirt to accommodate my curiosity, rapt and patient while I explored the wonder of our differences.
But his face opened to predatory delight once I stopped at the waist of his trousers. He dragged his shirt tails free, and with a flick of his wrists, sent the purple silk drifting to the floor, abandoned and unnecessary, like the lies that once stood between us.
His bared upper torso caught the firelight, each line gilded with golden flame and minute beads of sweat, taut with animal arousal. In poignant contrast, moisture streaked his cheeks, a marriage of both our tears where our faces earlier touched.
The sense of enormity overwhelmed me … of where we would go from here … of the changes his true identity would precipitate. Our joining would be so much more than lust. It healed me, this acknowledgement of my feelings for him, inasmuch as it cut me to bleed. For somewhere within my heart, Hawk still had residence as well.
This thought gouged behind my sternum and made my breath so shallow I grew light-headed.
Chaine lifted me into his arms. I held his nape with one hand as he stole another kiss, gliding my fingertips along his shadowed jaw. He stepped over pillows on the way to my bed then eased me down—the covers wrinkled and lumpy beneath me, my hair spanned across the blankets. His weight pressed me into the mattress, his body fitted to my curves perfectly—heat and hard potency penetrating the sparse fabrics between us.
As if fearing he was too heavy, he positioned himself half on and off, his thigh wedged within the center of my pantlets, heavy against the part of me that ached for him. Propped on his elbows, he twirled his fingers through my hair and stared into my eyes, both of us panting.
“Marry me,” he said. Simply and beautifully.
I caressed his bare back and his muscles answered with tiny twitches. I burned to say yes, to let him inside, to give him forever. But I could not forget his brother.
Chaine sensed my hesitation. “What stands between us still? This man … my rival?”
Perceptive, as always. “It is so much more complicated than you can imagine.”
“No.” Chaine kissed me, a sweet and gentle bribe. He said something unreadable against my lips then drew back and repeated the words in my line of sight. “We belong together. I’ll not allow him to touch you.”
“You need never worry of that.” My heart pinched. “It is impossible.”
Perplexed, he studied my face for answers, fingernails grazing my scalp, a delicate abrasion that tingled and taunted. Tears blurred my vision as I studied his face in the firelight, his lips swollen and moist, his expression arrested between desire and worry. In my haste to feel … I had complicated everything.
I wriggled out from under him and scooted to the bed’s edge. Chaine stood with me.
The back of his fingers whispered across my cheek and jaw, drying the tears.
“I’m to blame for all of this,” I muttered.
“Blame? There’s no blame here. My feelings for you. Yours for me. They’re guileless and pure. The only things decent and true in my life.” His attention flicked toward my chamber door. “The ladies are returning to their rooms.” He straightened my chemise. The ruffles clung to my skin, still wet from his tongue. “No doubt to prepare for supper.” His fingertip traced the outer curve of my breast over the fabric, as if he couldn’t resist touching me again.
I bit my lip as tendrils of heated pleasure shot through my sternum and swarmed my belly, then lower. Raking a hand through the dark trail of hair along his abdomen, I struggled to compose myself. We could not afford to get sidetracked. “Your shirt.” We both glanced around, but it was lost somewhere beneath the piles of pillows. My pulse’s racing rhythm shifted from arousal to worry. “If Enya finds you here half naked—”
“We could wrap me in the curtains; say you were teaching me how to dust.” He gestured to my French doors and winked.
I smothered a giddy, panicked snort.
Grinning, he tweaked my nose. “I’ll leave the way I came. I can find something to wear in my aunt’s room.” He captured both my palms and nuzzled my knuckles with soft lips as he walked backwards, leading me toward Gitana’s portrait through the path in the pillows.
He lifted his face. “I want you, Juliet.”
I had to force my gaze away from his naked chest to read the words.
“I want to be more than your companion. I want to be your confidante, your lover. Your husband. I want to hold you with nothing between us. But there is much to be explained. Things you need to understand. That I need to understand. Tonight, after supper, we shall tour the star tower. It will be private, as I’ve yet to open it to the public. There, we’ll settle everything.”
He wrapped my loose hair around his wrists and drew me close, kissing my forehead. Then he released me. My hair dropped to my waist, all but some static-filled strands which reached toward him, as if grieving his departure.
Looking back once, he stepped within the portrait door and vanished into the darkness—leaving his shirt behind, but taking one half of my heart with him.
Chapter 31
Stars are not seen by sunshine.
Spanish Proverb
I didn’t have time to reach out to Hawk before Enya came in to help me prepare for supper. She accepted that my chemise was damp from a spill I made while trying to water Hawk’s flower. After I was ready, she ducked into her room to tend herself. I plucked a petal, gloom-struck upon noting that only seven remained upon the flower.
Hawk reappeared in that moment, quiet and somber. His despair went much deeper than concern over the plant’s failure to bud. He had accepted he was Nicolas. I could read the resignation and shame in his eyes.
“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” I assured him, seated upon my bed as I struggled to contain my own spinning thoughts and chaotic emotions.
Hawk strode to the window and looked out at the dimming sky. “I am the very pig I accused my brother of being. We both saw it, didn’t we? But neither of us could admit it. My evolving tendencies toward jealous outbursts alone were indicative of a past temper.”
I clenched my jaw, frustrated by his inability to see the goodness in himself. “But there is light in you, as well. Your talent for architecture. Your beautiful gift of song. It’s your voice your father has been missing all these years.”
Hawk turned to me, a glimmer of tenderness in his eyes—though it was fleeting. “I could’ve spared us all of this. If only I’d thought just once to look.” He drew off the boot from hi
s right leg carefully; not all the way, only enough to show me a glaring malformation of bone beneath his ghostly skin before pulling the footwear back into place. “My lack of a limp is no different than my lack of appetite or sense of smell. I’m no longer tied to the same physical laws as those who live. My ‘memory’ of finding you in the tunnel, my knowledge of the gypsy tongue … they were imprinted upon my mind by the journal entries and exchanges Chaine and I shared during our short acquaintance. And as for being color blind myself, it must be a veil dropped across my eyes as a result of my death. Fitting, how I’m experiencing the loss my brother does on a daily basis.” The regret and remorse in his expression deepened with each word he spoke. “I suspect karma had a hand in that. Penance for all the times I used a woman, hurt a fellow man, or shamed my father.”
The fading outdoor light stretched through the prismatic glass and painted a hazy rainbow across the floor between us. “Hawk, none of this changes the way I feel about you.”
He bowed his head. “It should. Since I’ve been the rogue brother all along, I have no claim on your heart or your innocence. Chaine is the only one worthy of such things.”
His surrender shattered within me. I would have been stunned by such humility, had he not walked in his brother’s shoes for all of these past weeks. Had he not lived Chaine’s abuse and torments vicariously through pages of a journal he believed to be his. His resignation stemmed from guilt for his brother’s broken past, compounded by the impossibility of a pairing between the living and the dead.
An impossibility which had eaten away at my own soul for weeks.
Sharing my affections with two men was bad enough. But for one to be on another plane entirely … to be forced to watch each and every move his rival made and not have a chance to compete physically, it was agonizing. An agony which oozed like venom from Hawk’s phantom heart to mine, striking dead any hope of a happy ending.
Enya returned to the room before I could respond to Hawk’s self-castigation, and Uncle arrived thereafter to lead us to supper. I accompanied them both, although I had no appetite. Like Hawk, I no longer desired food or drink. It appeared at last I had managed to become a ghost myself.
After we dined with the investors, Chaine led me, Enya, and Uncle to the star tower. It was more magical than I ever imagined. Hand-wired strings of gas-powered miniature blue light bulbs wound around pillars and were linked by lattice-work like incandescent grape vines.
Beneath our feet, an inlay of black marble—swept clear of snow—reflected the stars from the open night-sky overhead like the smoothest pond in a midnight meadow. Tucked within tube-shaped iron vases, fresh cut sprigs of lavender and mint perfumed the air and added to the fantasy aura.
The walls rose at least eight feet high, with small, square openings cut into the stone to coax a refreshing breeze throughout. Using them, one could look down upon the Manor grounds safely without fear of falling. The turret spanned eighty feet. For privacy, canopied niches were set up in intervals against the wall, each containing a cushioned settee and two chairs, along with stacks of furs to combat the chill.
At the midst of the tower, the telescopes and refractors tilted up to the open sky, offering a view of the stars.
The viscount … Chaine … had outdone himself with the design. Or was it Hawk’s original creation?
My ghost had no answer as I settled upon a cushioned settee with Enya, while Chaine and Uncle took the opposing chairs. All evening, Hawk had been forced to watch my feelings for his brother continue to manifest, however I tried to hide them. Hawk couldn’t miss my blush when his brother and I exchanged glances during supper. Or that the viscount sought any reason to touch me: knees bumping beneath the table; hands searching out the same silver spoon to stir our soup; elbows turned out just enough to graze the fabric of our sleeves.
Now, my ghost stood by a square opening in the tower’s wall, gazing out: a graceful silhouette of blue echoing the twinkle of lights around him. It was so unsettling, to see him defeated … no jealous remarks, not even a frustrated scowl.
Hearing my thoughts, Hawk turned and leaned against the wall as he met my gaze. So engrossed in watching him, I didn’t even attempt to read the conversation taking place between my living companions. My eyes blurred with tears and I cursed this day. I cursed this night. Along with everything that had led to this torturous predicament. More than anything, I craved Mama’s presence. I longed for her advice.
My thoughts scattered when Uncle leaned forward to get my attention. Hawk turned his back again. Slanting my face out of the light, I dabbed my tears with a lacy cuff before Uncle could see them.
I studied his lips, grateful for the lantern that hung from a hook in the canopy overhead. As always, Chaine had been thinking of me when he brought the extra light, anticipating my need for illumination.
“You made me proud tonight, tiny sparrow,” Uncle said while smiling. “The way you charmed the investor’s wives before supper. I watched from across the room … they were riveted to your every word. What were you speaking of? Your hats?”
A wry smirk turned my mouth. “The Rational Dress Society. No one of them had ever heard of fashion reformation. I decided to plant the seed and see what might blossom.”
Uncle’s grin widened. “And?”
“And it shall be interesting as to what sort of trappings line the halls upon our welcome gala on Monday. The husbands are in for a brimming good shock.”
I shifted my shoes beneath me, making waves in my seven petticoats. No new gowns had yet arrived from Worthington, and as the merino-wool was my most posh ensemble, I had been forced to wear it again tonight for our visitors. I would also have to wear it on the morrow, too, as everyone planned a trip into Worthington for Sunday worship at a local parish. I dreaded it. My legs already ached from the climb up the stairs.
“And what did Lord Thornton think of your brass with his guests?” Uncle asked, his hand on mine to recoup my focus.
Chaine and Enya were discussing the constellations. Chaine pointed to the sky with his cane, but I didn’t miss his sidelong glance my way.
“He seemed … pleased.” Chaine had in fact encouraged it—stood by my side with an amused smirk stirring his whiskers at the ladies’ enthralled expressions. I couldn’t deny his presence and support had given me the courage to attempt such a connection. The ladies turned out to be more personable and receptive than I ever anticipated, and I no longer dreaded servicing the upper crust in my and Uncle’s shop.
“I am not surprised,” Uncle said. “The viscount lives only to make you happy.”
I nodded, though secretly disagreed. The “viscount” lived for something more. I knew that now … just as I knew his true identity. He had an ulterior motive for inviting Larson here. He’d been harboring revenge, and it was cold and ready to be dished upon a platter.
Tonight, I would learn of his plan, however dark and twisted it might be.
“I have something for you.” Chaine sat beside me on the settee after Uncle and Enya strolled over to a telescope in search of Hydras—the water snake constellation. He sat as close as propriety allowed and pulled a cylinder of paper from his coat pocket.
I hesitated to take it. “You have yet to answer my question about Larson,” I reminded him.
He pressed the paper into my hand. “Just, please. Look at it. I drew it for you.”
Biting my cheek, I unrolled and flattened the sketch along my thigh to reveal a black and white rose—its petals drawn to such spiraling perfection I might have plucked one off and sniffed its perfume. A broken, bloody thorn marred the stem. So beautiful in its fragility, it took my breath.
I met my host’s gaze. “You always see beyond the faults and capture the loveliness. Thank you for sharing your gift, Chaine.”
Grinning like a schoolboy, he traced the sketch’s lines along my thigh, his gloved finger penetrating the paper and my skirts, sending a dark coil of desire from my legs into my belly.
His eyes narrow
ed in the shimmer of the lantern. “Sweet Devla. This is torture. I want to take your hair down … to touch you again.” He was making it difficult to keep our earlier rendezvous in my chambers blotted from my mind, something Hawk shouldn’t be forced to see over and over.
I rolled up the picture and Chaine took it, tucking the cylinder into my shawl’s knot to keep the sketch safe.
“Might I have just a kiss?” He leaned closer. “’Tis all I could think of at supper. The wine held nothing to the flavor of you.”
“A kiss would hardly be appropriate here,” I stalled. “Considering our present company.”
Chaine craned his head around the canopy’s edge where my uncle and Enya stood out of earshot in the tower’s midst, looking through a telescope. He drew his head back in. “They are lost in their own besotted world.”
How to tell him I referred to his phantom brother? Outside, Hawk drifted aimlessly from one window to the next, feigning distraction. Seeing his shoulders hunched in despondency severed my insides like a razor. Bad enough he had to witness the romance Chaine rained upon me. I would not add to Hawk’s emotional contraband by kissing his brother in front of him.
“You are trying to distract me.” I steadied my gaze on Chaine and squeezed his hands to scold him.
He responded with a roguish half-smile. “You distracted me first, by stroking my hair.”
“It was falling into your eyes.”
“Like I’m falling into yours?”
I couldn’t refrain from laughing. “Answer my question.”
He inclined his head and smiled back. “For a lady of silence, you certainly cater to noise. Has anyone ever told you this?”
“Practically everyone who knows me.” I linked our fingers. “Now, indulge me with an answer.”
“Oh, it will be my pleasure to indulge you.” He lifted my inner wrist to his mouth, breaking his other hand free to skim up to my elbow. He nuzzled me, his whiskers snagging on my lace gloves before assuring I could see his lips again. “Once we are married, proper and true, I will carry you up the stairs wrapped in nothing but furs, and indulge every facet of your beautiful body, here beneath the stars.”
