by Kery, Beth
“Nothing. It’s just . . . I was wondering. Were there any more incidents with photographers?”
She stared at him blankly.
“In Chicago. Lin sent me a photograph that was in the Chicago Tribune business section of you at Noble Towers getting off the elevator.”
“Oh,” she said, comprehension rising. “No, that was the only time. Security was a little lax—”
“Because of the Christmas party,” Ian finished for her.
“Yes. Why do you ask?”
His eyelids narrowed. “I’m just wondering if that photo had something to do with the attack in Chicago.”
Her eyebrows went up in surprise.
“Maybe some sicko caught sight of you and became obsessed. Or maybe it signaled to someone that you were in a position of power at Noble and they planned a kidnapping. I think it was the latter, given the fact there were at least two men—the man who attacked you and the driver. Two people rarely share a twisted obsession, but will easily team up over greed.”
She came up slowly, bracing herself with her elbow.
“You’ve really been thinking a lot about this, haven’t you?”
“Almost about nothing else,” he admitted grimly.
“And so that really is the reason you came back. The only reason. Because you believed I was in danger.”
He caught the edge to her tone. His expression went carefully blank. “I came back because I was worried about you, yes.”
She just stared at him as her heartbeat began to pound in her ears. “The idea of me being harmed is the only thing that could penetrate your misery in regard to Trevor Gaines,” she stated more than asked.
He didn’t respond, but she saw the flash in his eyes—that one that always hinted at a storm on the horizon.
“What exactly have you been doing since you’ve been gone, Ian?”
There. She’d said it. She couldn’t take it back now, not it or that underlying subtext that accompanied the question. What is more important than me? Than us?
“Ian? What were you doing in France?” she prompted when he didn’t speak, just watched her with those dark-angel eyes.
“I told you,” he said. “I’ve had business there.”
A chill seemed to settle in her heart, but unfortunately, it didn’t numb off the flash of pain she experienced. “I see,” she said quietly. “So you don’t trust me enough—or care enough—to tell me, in other words.”
“Francesca, it’s not that—” he said sharply, but she interrupted him by flipping back the sheet.
“Excuse me,” she murmured before she left the bed and hurried to the bathroom, walking past her discarded clothing on the floor. She’d find a towel to cover her nakedness before she retrieved them. The last thing she wanted to do at that moment was expose herself to Ian any more than she already had.
Chapter Eight
It was a cool, crisp, windless morning. She went for a long walk with Anne and Elise on the grounds after a light breakfast. She struggled to focus and take part in the conversation as they walked through fields, gardens, and woods, but could tell from the other women’s concerned glances that her distracted, withdrawn state hadn’t gone unnoticed. At Elise’s request, they stopped in the ultramodern stables on the return to the house.
“You’re very quiet this morning,” Anne said privately to Francesca as Elise stroked a russet-colored mare in the distance.
Francesca blinked, rising out of her ruminations. She gave Anne a smile. “I’ve been thinking a lot about the painting.”
“You’ve been thinking a lot about Ian.”
She started. She saw Anne’s sad, knowing smile. “Is he coming around any?” the older lady asked hopefully.
Francesca ground her teeth together at the question. “No. He won’t budge. He’s determined to be miserable.”
Anne sighed. “In my experience, people are seldom determined to be alone and depressed. It’s more that they feel they can’t escape it.”
Regret sliced through her. “I know,” she assured, frustration edging her tone. “But why is he so insistent that Trevor Gaines matters? Ian never even knew him! He’s dead, thank God,” she muttered bitterly under her breath.
Anne put her hand on her forearm. “I know it must be so difficult for you to understand, given your situation with Ian.”
“You’re right,” Francesca said in a burst of honesty. “I’m furious with him for being so stubborn. And are you honestly saying you do understand him?”
“Yes. I don’t agree with him, and I’m extremely worried about his state of mind, but I do understand,” Anne said. She shook her head. “Ian had such a fractured childhood, caring for Helen as if he were an adult, worrying day in and day out he’d be put in an orphanage if the townspeople understood how mad she was, dreading the times when his own mother would cringe away from him in fear. I think that moment when Lucien showed him that photograph of Gaines, and it looked so much like Ian, might have been the worst minute of Ian’s life, but one of the best, too.”
“Best?” Francesca asked, stunned.
“Well not best, perhaps, but . . . significant. He could never make sense of his past. He always tried, but it’s as if Helen’s disorganization, her insanity, made it so hard for him to focus. The questions he used to ask us when he came here as a child: What makes a person go mad? Would he become like his mother? If his father wasn’t schizophrenic, was there a chance he wouldn’t be? Who was his father? Why hadn’t he taken care of Helen?” Anne grimaced in memory. “The concept of an adult looking out for him was so foreign to him, he never even asked once why his father hadn’t taken care of him.”
Francesca closed her eyes to shield her pain.
“He always guessed his father had taken advantage of Helen’s vulnerability,” Francesca said after a moment. “He worried she’d been raped. I don’t understand how finding out all his suspicions were valid—even worse than what he’d suspected—could have been remotely a good thing for him.”
“Because you know how important clarity is to him,” Anne said. “Ian has to be one of the most focused, methodical people I’ve ever known. He prizes seeing clearly above all else, partly I believe, because he was forced at a young age to deal with his mother’s disorganization and irrational behavior. Do you realize how hard it would be, to understand who you are when your only guide is a woman ruled by madness? He coped by making their world as orderly, as controlled, as predictable as he possibly could. But still, so many questions remained for him. His early life—his very identity—still felt blurred to him.”
“So finding out about Trevor Gaines was good for him because it made sense. It helped—”
“Focus the blur, yes,” Anne said.
Francesca stared at Elise in the distance as she moved over to a big chestnut stallion’s stall and began murmuring to the animal in French.
“You’re saying that he would rather see the truth clearly, no matter how painful or ugly that truth is,” Francesca said slowly. The anger she’d been feeling seemed to solidify in her chest cavity, making her heart feel like a winter-cold stone.
“Yes, that’s what I’m saying,” Anne said.
“It won’t help him,” Francesca said starkly. “There’s no meaning to be found in a man like Trevor Gaines.”
Anne sighed and turned to join her in watching Elise. “It’s not the truth about Trevor Gaines he’s trying to understand, not entirely anyway,” Anne said bleakly. “He’s trying desperately to understand himself.”
* * *
After that conversation, Francesca was agitated, feeling like she wanted to jump out of her own skin. She made an excuse for wanting to examine some of the elaborate stonework on Belford Hall’s façade, walking ahead of Anne and Elise. Although Anne looked a little concerned, she made light of her request for Elise’s sake. By the time she’d used the passkey
and security code Anne had supplied her with upon her arrival and activated the lock on the front door, entering Belford minutes later, she’d gained no peace. In fact, her edginess only grew when she saw Ian standing in the Great Hall talking quietly to Gerard. She had the distinct impression he’d been waiting for her return. He’d showered since she’d last seen him, his well-cut, crisp attire of black pants, white dress shirt, and light gray jacket in attractive contrast to the fact that he hadn’t shaved this morning and sported a slight scruff on his jaw. The shadows on his face only served to make his eyes look more blue—and fierce—when he pinned her with his stare.
He said something to Gerard under his breath and walked over to greet her. The last thing she wanted to do was talk to Ian at that point, however. After last night and her talk with Anne, she was confused about how she felt. Her nerves felt stretched and raw.
She started to hurry past him as he approached, her eyes glued to the escape of the staircase.
“Francesca, wait.”
She paused and glanced back at him warily.
“May I have a word?” he asked, nodding toward the sitting room.
“Not now,” she blurted out. Distantly, outside the realm of Ian’s stare, which seemed to make up her entire world for a breathless few seconds, she heard the door open and Anne and Elise enter.
His nostrils flared slightly and she sensed his barely contained, frothing emotions. He stepped toward her.
“It’ll only take a moment.”
“No,” she said, feeling shaken . . . unsure. She didn’t feel angry when she looked at him anymore, and she didn’t know what to make of that. Her anger had been her strength. She turned to go, but Ian grasped her arm, halting her. In a split second, her volatility burst free. She jerked her arm, breaking his grasp.
“Let go of me,” she exclaimed desperately. She turned and walked away.
“Francesca,” Ian grated out, his frustration palpable. It alarmed her to hear that much emotion in the voice of someone who was typically so in control.
It pained her.
She kept walking toward the closest door, barely holding in an avalanche of emotion herself, blindly seeking an escape. She reached for a door randomly, but it opened before she touched it. Clarisse stepped out, her smile upon seeing Francesca sagging when she noticed her expression. Francesca said nothing, just plunged into the dining room and slammed the door abruptly behind her.
* * *
Ian started to charge after her, but paused at Anne’s quiet warning.
“No, Ian. Let her be for now.”
He made a rough sound of pure frustration and came to an abrupt halt at the sound of the dining room door slamming shut behind Francesca. Clarisse looked at him and jumped, giving a tiny squeak of alarm. From the periphery of his awareness, he noticed how pale the maid looked as she stared at him with huge eyes. What did she see, looking at him in that moment? He’d frightened Clarisse.
Gerard approached. Ian clenched his teeth. He really needed to get a handle on this fury he’d been experiencing toward Gerard. It was fueled by jealousy.
Wasn’t it?
“Remind me never to get on Francesa’s bad side,” Gerard said in an attempt at levity.
“Shut up, Gerard,” Ian ground out aggressively. He saw his cousin’s eyes flash with anger, but he was too irritated to apologize. He strode across the Great Hall and opened the door to the sitting room. The abrupt manner in which he shut it undoubtedly conveyed that he wanted to be left alone.
* * *
“How long do you have?” Gerard murmured later as he pulled Clarisse into his suite and closed the door.
“Only an hour or so. I have to help with the lunch since Mina is sick.”
“Long enough,” Gerard said, placing his hand along the side of her throat and leaning down to kiss her. He immediately began to undress her, not in the mood for wooing. Not that wooing was required. Clarisse was young and biddable and more than willing to warm the future Earl of Stratham’s bed. She arched against him as he unzipped her dress, pressing her breasts against his ribs, her hands moving over him, eager to please.
Very eager.
He removed her dress uniform and draped it in the crook of his arm. She plastered herself against him, her blue eyes springing wide when she worked her hand between their bodies and touched his erection. He was hard as a rock. He couldn’t seem to get rid of his flagrant erection since last night no matter how many times he masturbated, which is why he’d subtly signaled to Clarisse earlier in the Great Hall, silently ordering her to his room for this unusual daytime tryst. His arousal was such that his hand would not suffice.
He needed to rid himself of this grinding sexual tension. He required concentration to discern the last part of the recorded sequence of Ian at his computer. At least he’d placed that camera eye in the perfect place in Ian’s room.
“I suppose given this,” Clarisse glanced down significantly at his cock, “you don’t want a report on Francesca until afterward? I have some important information, you know.”
“Like that she didn’t spend the night in her room?”
She looked surprised. Gerard smiled grimly. “I have my ways of getting information, too, little one. I’m worried. Things between Ian and her are growing quite volatile. You saw how they were in the Great Hall earlier.”
“Yes. Mr. Noble looked . . . scary. But do you really think he’s dangerous?”
“He’s unstable. I’m afraid he might have more in common with his mother than any of us like to admit. I can tell Anne and James are worried about it, but they don’t like to say anything. It’s too difficult of a topic for them, as much as they’ve suffered with watching Helen’s descent into madness. Ian’s state of mind is why I’ve had you looking out for Francesca. Sadly, it looks as if her feelings for him haven’t been dampened by his volatility. It’s not going to end up anywhere good between them,” he stated grimly.
He ignored Clarisse’s concerned expression and pulled her over to his bed without removing her lingerie, panties, and shoes. She had to half jog to keep up with him, her breasts bouncing in the push-up bra she wore.
“Bend over the bed,” he said shortly. “You were right. I’m not in the mood to wait.”
“Yes sir.”
She did as she was told, and he smiled as he reached into the pocket of her dress still draped over his arm. He took out her Belford passkey. Clarisse had recently unwisely informed him that she frequently got in trouble from the maid supervisor for misplacing her key. Unfortunately for her, he’d learned that Clarisse had a history of getting herself into trouble, a fact that Gerard planned to use to his advantage. He opened a drawer on the bedside table and dropped the key inside before removing a bottle of lubricant and tossing aside the dress.
He didn’t demand that she call him sir, it just slipped out every once in a while from habit. It didn’t displease him. Not in the least. If fate hadn’t been such a cruel bitch, Clarisse would have been his possession just like everything else at Belford.
He jerked down his pants and underwear and opened the bottle of lubricant. He approached her, rubbing the silky liquid onto his raging erection as he did so. She wouldn’t be prepared for this quick of an entry, but he was, and that was all that counted.
He slid her panties over her ass and let them fall down her ankles. He squeezed a buttock, grunting in arousal. She was firm and taut, although not as fleshy as he’d like for what he had planned. Still, she’d do. He drove his cock into her, making her squeal.
Yes, she’d do very nicely.
He pushed his cock into her pussy, grabbed her slender hips, and began slamming into her with unapologetic greed. At first, her moans might have been from discomfort, but they quickly segued to the sounds of a woman who was enjoying being fucked. Her pussy was tight and muscular. Even if she hadn’t agreed to pass information to him about private
matters regarding Francesca, he might have chosen her for a regular bedmate during this particular stay at Belford. Clarisse would do almost anything he demanded of her sexually.
Which reminded him . . .
She was growing hot and juicy, moaning as he took her harder. He grabbed her buttocks and spanked one of them, watching his cock plunging in and out of her pussy all the while. She mewled at the spanking, so he landed several more, his cock jerking in excitement in her tight channel at the smacking sound and the rising color on the smooth cheeks.
He gritted his teeth in restraint and slowly drew his erection out of her, his cock falling and bobbing in the air before him. God, he was horny. If only he could get last night out of his head. It plagued him, those memories of what he’d seen . . . of what he hadn’t seen, but only heard. Damn Ian for not cooperating and carrying on all of his antics with Francesca in places other than the bed, where one of two surveillance cameras was placed. True, his primary objective was to gather information, and he was close—so close—to decoding the movement of Ian’s rapidly moving fingers as he punched in his private password to his computer. But that didn’t mean that he didn’t enjoy all the other things he’d witnessed in his cousin’s room last night. Well, Gerard wasn’t sure if enjoyed was the right word. It also enraged him, ate at him, haunted him to hear Francesca’s cries and mewls of stark pleasure, to observe Ian dominating and possessing what Gerard could not make submit or own.
It would have been better for Francesca’s health if she’d accepted Gerard. Much better. She was a fool to seek solace and protection from a man who was not destined to be on this earth for much longer.
That surveillance video certainly plagued his cock as well, Gerard thought, grimacing as he stroked his rigid erection. He was uncomfortable from sustained arousal, but also very pleased. He enjoyed discovering something that made him this stiff and virile.
He stepped out of his pants and underwear, pausing to remove his belt, looping it in one hand. Clarisse remained bent over the bed, but she looked anxiously over her shoulder. She made an arousing picture, her cheeks starting to flush from excitement, her bottom slightly pink, her outer sex visible between her spread thighs, the tissues slick and flushed. She saw the belt. His cock jumped in the air when her eyes widened in trepidation. Their sexual relationship had only begun the day before Francesca arrived at Belford, when he’d heard Clarisse would be the one to serve her. He’d never done anything like this to her before. He chuckled and smoothed the leather over her ass.
