Celeste’s uncertainty was clear, but so was her excitement as she was swept into the tidal wave that was Lady Lena and led from the room. Owen could hear them giggling and talking all the way down the hall until Miss Smith crossed to the door and shut it with a pointed click, leaving Owen alone with a woman who clearly had opinions about him.
But he wasn’t certain if they were good or bad.
They stared at each other for a moment. He made no attempt to read her. After all, he had no duty to do so. He didn’t fear what she would do to Celeste either, for it was evident this woman cared deeply for her. But he was no fool. He knew Miss Smith was reading him. Down to the core, to the bone.
It was a somewhat unpleasant sensation and one that made him wonder what the outcome of that judgment would be.
At last Miss Smith stepped closer and spoke words that rocked his very core. “So you are in love with her.”
Chapter 17
That was the last thing Owen had thought Miss Smith would say, and he took a long step back from her as if he could escape those words. Better yet, escape the truth of them. Because they were true. Hearing them out loud made them so obvious that he was surprised he hadn’t come to this revelation on his own.
Or perhaps he had, with every moment he spent with Celeste, but had pushed those feelings aside. Tried to pretend away his growing love for her because it was so dangerous and fraught. Because it was bound to cause him pain, given the circumstances.
When he didn’t answer, Miss Smith tilted her head. “It’s impossible not to love her, one way or another. At least to any intelligent person.” Her lips thinned as though she was thinking of something unpleasant. “Did you meet her parents when you were coming to collect her in Twiddleport?”
“I did.”
She shrugged. “Then you know what she put up with all her life.”
“Yes, down to when they forced a marriage with a bigamist on her rather than doing even the slightest due diligence about the man.” He clenched his hands at his sides.
She seemed to mark that physical action closely, catalogue it with every other thought she was gathering. The woman would make a wonderful investigator. “Yes. I spent my entire tenure as her governess trying to subvert their selfish disregard for her. Trying to convince them that they should consider her and what she needed in even the smallest way. I was ultimately sacked for it.” She shook her head.
“You did very well by her, though, Miss Smith,” Owen said. “She is independent-minded and smarter than any other person I’ve ever known.”
“Harriet,” Miss Smith said softly. “If you love my Celeste and you are bright enough to see her virtues beyond her pretty face, then you have earned the right to call me Harriet just as she does.”
He inclined his head. “Thank you.”
“And I know Celeste is all those things you say she is. She always was, and I see her coming into her own now that she is here in London, out from under their thumbs, from under the oppression of that small place and the small minds who live there.” She smiled slightly, but then it fell. “But it doesn’t change the fact that as a result of her parents’ foolishness, she was sheltered.”
“I did not see any evidence that she was protected,” Owen said.
“Not protected, sheltered,” Harriet repeated. “And certainly not out of excessive care, but out of a lack of it. They did not show her the world because it had no value to them. And now I fear she is not entirely cognizant of what will happen next, after the dust settles on this enormous scandal.”
He paced away to the fire and stared into the flames for a moment. “I’ll help her.”
They both knew what he meant. He wasn’t ready to say it out loud yet and she didn’t push, but it was clear. He did love Celeste. He wanted a life with her. He knew that as easily as his own name or the street he lived on. He would know it in the darkest corner of the coldest part of the world. He would know it without ever having that emotion returned.
“And can I trust you to do that?” Miss Smith asked.
He faced her. “If she would allow me to.”
“And if she won’t?” she said slowly, almost carefully, like she was trying to avoid hurting him.
The arrow still landed, though, softly slung or not. A creeping pain in his chest at the idea that for Celeste, their bond was one created merely out of fear of the future. That he was something solid to cling to in a storm, but nothing more. That if he asked her to stay, she would walk away.
All her right. All entirely understandable considering the way she had been controlled her whole life. But God, the idea was painful.
“I would still do everything in my power to see her happy,” he said. “Including encouraging her to turn to old friends for a fresh start if they could offer it.”
Miss Smith didn’t say anything for a moment, just continued to examine him with that careful expression that revealed nothing of what she thought of it all. “Yes,” she said at last. “You might at that. Which means you might deserve her.”
“I don’t deserve her,” he corrected.
Before she could reply, the door to the salon opened and Celeste and Lena re-entered the room. Their arms were still linked and they were laughing. Owen stared. All the pressure of the last few days was gone from Celeste’s face. She was flushed with pure delight and his heart thudded with even more love for her than he had admitted, if only to himself, a moment ago.
“Oh, Owen, the rest of the apartment is charming! They have the sweetest little library,” Celeste said as she crossed to him and stared up at him with those shining eyes that took his breath away.
“It is the hazard of living above London’s finest bookshop,” Lena said as she moved to stand beside Harriet. “Mr. Mattigan is the most delightful enabler of a love for books. Speaking of which, Celeste, I will find that book we were discussing down in the shop and have it sent over to you later today.”
Something in Celeste’s cheek fluttered and she nodded. “That’s very kind. I appreciate it.” She glanced up at Owen. “You and I have another engagement, don’t we?”
He wrinkled his brow, for they had made no other appointment. But it was clear she wished to speak to him away from the others, so he went along with the ruse. “We do, indeed.”
Harriet exchanged a quick glance with Lena before she moved forward and embraced Celeste warmly. “We won’t keep you. But I hope you will come back for the Salon and also to have supper with us.”
“Oh yes, do!” Lena said, and squeezed Celeste’s hand with both of hers. “We would be a jolly foursome!”
“We will,” Celeste assured them as they moved as a group to the door where they had met not so very long ago. “I’m so happy to have been able to see you, Harriet, and to meet Lena at last!”
They said their goodbyes and Owen followed Celeste down the stairs back to the entrance where they’d come in. The footman who had greeted them was waiting there, and he ran to fetch their carriage back to the street as Celeste and Owen strolled back to the front of the building.
Owen smiled as Celeste peered in the windows of Mattigan’s Bookshop. “We could go in,” he offered.
She jumped as if she hadn’t expected him to talk, so wrapped up was she in examining the books through the window. “If I go in, we will be in there for hours,” she said. “I know myself too well. And I want to talk to you.”
He didn’t understand why she felt this sudden drive to speak to him, but he wasn’t about to let it go. “You know,” he said, leaning a little closer so they wouldn’t be overheard. “You are very beautiful when you are happy. You shine.”
Pink suffused her cheeks and she ducked her head for a moment at the compliment. Then she lifted her gaze back to his. “Owen?”
He nodded.
“Do we have time to go back to your home and…finish what we started in the carriage?”
He blinked down into her upturned face. Oh yes, he was definitely in love with this woman. Desperately, completely
and irretrievably in love. And he was not going to allow himself to fret over or regret it, just revel in it as long as he could spend time with her.
“Oh yes,” he said softly. “We most definitely do.”
Rather than his parlor, Owen had escorted Celeste to his bedchamber this time after they arrived at his home. He had stepped out for a moment, to talk to a servant about something, and so she was alone in his room.
It was not a giant chamber, but it was very much…him. With dark wall coloring, a few pretty landscapes on the walls and books stacked on every free surface. She smiled as she perused the titles. Novels and history books and information about everything in between. They spoke of a busy mind always collecting, collecting and then making that information work for him.
Of course there was a huge stack of books next to his bed, and that made her eyes travel there. It was certainly big enough for two, with a soft coverlet that looked like one could be comfortable there for hours.
She very much wanted to do just that. Lock out the real world, the worrying world, the uncertain world, and create a tiny little corner where only she and Owen existed.
She moved to touch the coverlet, drawing her hand over it slowly from the foot of the bed to the head. There were papers stacked on the bedside table, and she turned her head to look at the top one. A list, because of course it was a list. She would have smiled if not for the contents of it.
Abigail’s name—and a long string of reasons for her being the murderer.
Celeste’s heart sank and her stomach turned. She’d known he kept her friend on his suspect list, but this seemed far more serious a thing. He was narrowing down the people who could have killed Erasmus and his brilliant mind had begun to settle, it seemed.
There were voices in the hall and Celeste stepped away from the list so he wouldn’t know she was peeking at it. She very much wanted to bring it up, of course, but what would she say? She had already declared Pippa innocent due to a “feeling” and if she repeated that same mantra with Abigail, who he clearly suspected all the more, she doubted it would land as well.
No, what she needed was more evidence. Something to counter the points she had read in his neat, even hand. And that wasn’t something she would find tonight in his bedroom. She moved to the fire and tried to look as innocent as she could when he opened the door.
He stood in the doorway a moment, staring at her. All her thoughts fell away, all her fears vanished. Tonight wasn’t about investigations or discussions or anything but the way his gaze fluttered over her. The way his pupils dilated with desire. The way his hands flexed at his sides as if he was desperately fighting for control.
They had been in this place before. He had looked at her with such passion before, she had felt her body respond in kind before. And yet this time it felt different. It felt less fraught and more…impactful to have asked for this pleasure rather than surrendered to it.
“Oh, that will not do,” he said softly as he closed and locked the door behind himself.
“What will not do?” she asked, her voice breathy in the quiet.
“That frown,” he said. “I will have to find some way to make it go away.”
Already she felt herself smiling, even though the dark desire in his eyes made her entire body heavy and ready for what would come next. If he wanted to work at making her even more ready?
Well, she wouldn’t argue with the man. He was far more the expert, after all.
He crossed to her in a few long steps and his arms came around her. She breathed in his scent, soap and leather and something that was uniquely this man. She reveled in the warmth and comfort of his arms around her, smoothing her back so gently, so protectively.
“Did you have a good time today?” he whispered.
She stared up into his face, marveling that she was offering herself to him quite shamelessly and yet he was still inquiring after her health and well-being. There was no one in the world like him.
And somehow he wanted her.
“I did,” she said with a smile she didn’t have to force. “Seeing Harriet again was everything I hadn’t dared to hope for. And Lena is wonderful. They are really in love.”
“They are,” he agreed softly. Wistfully? No, that couldn’t be true. “It is a wonderful partnership between them.”
She nodded. “I’m so glad Harriet is happy and has found someone who is her equal. And their welcome to me was…I was so pleased.”
“Not surprised, though,” he said, smoothing a lock of hair away from her face gently.
She leaned forward and rested her head on his shoulder. His arms pulled in tighter and she wrapped her own around his waist. For moment she reveled in the fact that he was just holding her and it felt like home.
He felt like home, and she ignored how dangerous that idea was.
“I hoped I wouldn’t be treated differently, but my circumstances cannot guarantee that I won’t be shunned, even by old friends.” She sighed against his shoulder. “I couldn’t even blame them if they had gone the route of self-preservation.”
He made a rumbling sound in his chest. Displeasure at the thought. But the vibration of him against her was anything but unpleasant. She burrowed even closer to him and let one hand drift lower. Down his waist and over the curve of his backside. When she squeezed, the rumble in his chest was no longer a negative sound.
She lifted her head to watch his face as she squeezed again, this time a little harder. His gaze glinted in the firelight, suddenly much harsher and more intense than she had ever seen. He caught her chin, tilting her face toward his, and then his mouth came down and claimed hers, hard and fast and with so much purpose that her knees went weak.
She opened to him, welcoming him in as she lost track of time and space. She lost track of everything but the sensation of drawing her hands along his body, of him touching her in return, of his mouth colliding with hers, of the taste of him merging with her own flavor. God, how she wanted this man, in a way she had convinced herself she could not feel after her terrible experiences with Erasmus. But here it was and it was intoxicating.
Owen broke his lips from hers, his breath short as he stared down at her. Yes, the expression was still heavy with desire, but there was something else there too. Something…far more powerful. She tilted her head to find it, to identify it. She wanted it to be more than lust. She wanted it to be more than friendship.
She wanted more from this man, even if that was foolhardy and impossible. Even if it would only lead to both their ruin in the end, considering how utterly hazy the future was.
As if he sensed that desire, he spun her around so that her back was to him, cutting off her access to seeing him, watching him. Cutting off any hope she had of seeing what was in his heart. It was…disappointing, far more than it should have been.
But what wasn’t disappointing was that he began to unbutton her gown. So she leaned back into him, pushing aside those wild and foolish desires for something she couldn’t have. Instead, she focused on what she did have. And hoped it would be enough when all was said and done.
Chapter 18
As Owen unfastened Celeste’s gown, he kissed the side of her neck, sucking hard, then soft, back and forth until she found herself grinding her bottom against him. She had never realized how sensitive that spot was, how it sent vibrations of sensation ricocheting through her with even this simple touch. But it did. She heard whimpered sounds of pleasure in the air around them. Wordless pleas for more. They were in her own voice, desperate and needy.
“More?” he asked, his voice muffled by her flesh against his tongue.
“All of it,” she begged.
He hesitated for a mere flash of a moment, then pushed her dress forward off her shoulders. His fingers dragged back up the front of her chemise slowly, hands cupping both her breasts from behind. He massaged there and she gasped out a helpless breath. How could every single touch light her up with more intensity than the last? How could he make her feel all the need
and passion and pleasure she had convinced herself didn’t even exist with just the simplest brush of his hands?
She didn’t know the answer, but she knew she didn’t want it to end. She pivoted around into his broad chest, lifting her mouth hard into his even as she shoved the gown down her body and impatiently kicked it away. She wanted to feel this man’s flesh against her, free of all other impediments. Nothing else would do.
He caught her hips with both hands, his fingers pressing against the flesh through her thin chemise, massaging the curves there. It only made her more desperate, so she pushed his jacket away and then lifted shaking hands to his cravat. She had to open her eyes to unknot it. She was not so experienced in undressing a man to do it by feel alone. She found him watching her as she did so, pale brown eyes locked on hers. Her fingers fumbled in the long swath of fabric.
“Need help?” he asked, smiling, that dimple popping in his cheek. She released the cravat with a sharp inhalation of breath and reached up to trace his lips and then his cheek, smoothing her thumb across that fascinating divot of his dimple as she had longed to do since the first moment he flashed it toward her.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Please.”
He untied the cravat with a few flicks of his wrist and unwound it just as expertly. But instead of dropping it to the floor to join her dress, he looped it around behind her, catching her in the snare of it and drawing her even closer with the cravat as leverage.
She was trapped and she didn’t care. She wanted it. She wanted all of it and more and more and more. She was going to take it, take him, one way or another.
She began to unbutton his shirt as he tugged her hips flush to his with the cravat. She arched against him, her breath coming short and her vision blurring as they ground against each other. He dropped the cravat and cupped her backside with his hands instead, moving her against him, making her forget his half-undone shirt as he backed her toward the bed. Her thighs hit the high edge and he lifted her, depositing her there and wedging himself between her legs.
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