Asa had held his nose and taken the money of far greasier men then Hampston.
In fact, had it not been for Eve’s dread of the man, Asa had no doubt he would’ve gladly made a deal with Hampston.
“No?” For a moment Lord Hampston stared at Asa as if dumbfounded. “I confess, sir, that I’m astounded. Rarely have I offered funds and been turned down.”
“I understand, my lord, and I truly appreciate your offer,” Asa replied easily. “But I already have enough backers for my needs at present.”
Lord Hampston grunted. “Many men would take the money anyway.”
“Many men become hopelessly entangled in debt,” Asa responded with a smile.
A smile Lord Hampston returned. “You have a good business head on your shoulders, sir.”
The viscount was obviously disappointed, but he took his leave cordially enough a few minutes later.
Asa made his way back to his office, his head downbent in thought. What, exactly, did Eve have against the aristocrat? Did he merely remind her of her father? Of something far worse?
Had Hampston hurt her?
He pushed open the door to his office, determined to find the answer, only to discover it empty.
Eve was gone.
BRIDGET CRUMB WAS supervising the polishing of the grand marble staircase—a laborious job that had to be done monthly—when the pounding came at the front door.
That was interesting. Most people knocked sedately at a duke’s door.
Bridget gave a last sharp glance to one of the maids—Fanny had a tendency to stop work if an eagle eye wasn’t kept on her—and walked to the front door.
She’d only just pulled it open when Miss Dinwoody pushed past her.
“I must write a letter to my brother,” she said, rushing toward the stairs.
“Of course, miss,” Bridget said, though the other woman didn’t seem to be listening.
The footman who always accompanied Miss Dinwoody stepped inside after her. He had a worried frown as he watched his mistress run up the stairs.
“Shall I send for some tea?” Bridget asked.
The footman gave her a grateful glance. “Thank you.”
And then he followed Miss Dinwoody.
Bridget murmured an order to one of the maids, who rose immediately and dashed to the kitchens. The housekeeper followed more slowly, a slight frown between her eyes.
The tea tray was ready by the time she made it to the kitchens—an advantage of always having a kettle of water on the hob. Fanny was just lifting it when Bridget forestalled her.
“I’ll take it,” she said. “Continue polishing the stairs, please. I expect the banister to be done by the time I return from upstairs.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Fanny said, resentment seeping into her voice.
Bridget sighed to herself as she climbed the stairs. Fanny wouldn’t be much longer at Hermes House. A lazy, surly maid was more bother than she was worth. Bridget often had to organize the staff when she took a new position: she kept those who were industrious, teachable, or smart—hopefully all three—and the rest she let go. Anyone too lazy, too indifferent, or, God forbid, too light-fingered was gone immediately.
A housekeeper was only as good as the servants she commanded.
As she made the upper hall, Bridget could hear the murmur of voices from His Grace’s library, and indeed, when she entered, Miss Dinwoody was speaking rapidly to her footman. “This must go at once to my brother. I need to know, Jean-Marie, or I shall go mad.”
She turned as Bridget entered with the tea tray. “Oh, thank you, Mrs. Crumb. Can you send at once for Alf? I need to get this letter to Val as soon as possible.” Miss Dinwoody had a letter clutched in one hand, but she froze suddenly. “Oh. Oh, damn.”
Bridget paused an infinitesimal second in setting out the tea things. Miss Dinwoody did not strike her as the type of lady who swore.
Something must truly be amiss.
“Is there anything I can do, miss?” she murmured. She daren’t make any more of an offer.
She was a servant, after all.
“No, thank you, Mrs. Crumb. It’s my own stupidity.” Miss Dinwoody closed her eyes tightly. “Alf is at Harte’s Folly. I set him to work there. Oh, how could I have forgotten?”
She looked suddenly defeated.
“You are much excited, ma petite,” the footman murmured, “and not thinking clearly. Come, I will send for Alf. It will not take ’im long to arrive and then ’e will send your letter on to ’Is Grace.”
“You make it sound so easy, Jean-Marie,” Miss Dinwoody murmured, and Bridget was horrified to see that her eyes shone as if from tears.
The sight so discombobulated her that she pressed a cup of tea into the other woman’s hands.
Miss Dinwoody took a sip as Bridget exchanged a worried look with Jean-Marie.
“It is easy, chérie, truly,” Jean-Marie said. “Come. Finish your tea while I make the arrangements to send for Alf, and when I return we shall go ’ome, oui? You did not sleep well last night. I think perhaps it would be good to rest.”
“You’re right, Jean-Marie,” Miss Dinwoody sighed. “You’re always right.” She sat and cradled her cup of tea in her lap like a small girl while the footman went to run his errand.
Bridget ought to depart the room as well, but she didn’t like to leave Miss Dinwoody alone.
She looked so fragile.
So she busied herself quietly, ordering the already ordered desk. Miss Dinwoody didn’t seem to notice her presence, so lost in her own thoughts was she.
In another moment the footman returned. “Everything is good. I ’ave sent for Alf and when ’e comes Mrs. Crumb will show ’im the letter.”
“At once,” Bridget murmured.
Jean-Marie nodded at her. “So there is no reason to linger here. We shall return ’ome and find what delicious thing Tess has made for our supper.”
He held out his hand and Miss Dinwoody took it, rising. Bridget followed them from the room and saw them down the stairs and out the front door.
The moment the door closed, however, she turned and strode swiftly back to the duke’s library, locking the door behind her.
The letter sat on his desk, ready for Alf.
Bridget picked it up and turned it over to look at the seal. She set it down and took a letter opener shaped like a small, sharp dagger from the desk drawer. She walked to the fireplace and held the blade of the letter-opener in the flames until it was hot.
Then she swiftly and efficiently slid the hot blade under the wax seal, melting it enough to pop it off the letter without destroying the embossed figure or tearing the paper.
She opened the letter and read:
Val:
Do you know the name of the man that night?
Your loving sister,
E.
Bridget stared at the simple letter a moment longer, her brows knit. Then she reheated the knife and held it to the reverse of the seal, melting the wax. She turned the seal over and carefully pressed it back onto the letter.
She placed the letter on the desk, exactly where it had been, and said clearly and out loud, “I hope the duke receives this soon.”
And then she left the room and quietly closed the door behind her.
Chapter Thirteen
Eric and Dove walked for what seemed miles until they came to a clear, bubbling stream. Beside the stream grew a luxurious bed of watercress. Dove smiled at the sight—for she was rather hungry—until she noticed Eric scowling down at the green leaves.
“My mistress bid me bring her a bag of this watercress, but it’s enchanted,” he explained. “It shrinks from my hands every time I try to pick it.” And to demonstrate he reached down to grab a bunch, only to have the leaves retreat into the ground.…
—From The Lion and the Dove
Jean-Marie took one long look at Asa when he answered Eve’s door that night, and let him in.
“Where is she?” Asa asked tiredly. It took over an h
our to travel from Harte’s Folly on the south bank of the Thames to Eve’s town house on the north bank, and he was bloody weary.
“Upstairs,” Jean-Marie said. “’Er mind is much agitated.”
Asa paused, his foot on the bottom step of the stairs. “I know.”
Then he mounted the stairs.
She was in her sitting room, but instead of working on her miniature, she sat on the settee, her hands folded in her lap.
She glanced up as he entered. “I heard your knock.”
“Did you?” He watched her, this woman who irritated him, amused him, engaged him, and aroused him. He’d come armed with explanations and reassurances. Reasons why she shouldn’t fear Hampston and questions about what had happened to make her so fearful in the first place.
But he was tired and she looked so alone sitting there, her blue eyes sad.
“The hell with it,” he muttered, and, taking two long steps, he sank to the cushions beside Eve. He held his hands, palms up, between them. “May I?”
It was a risk after he’d walked away with a man she so obviously feared. She had every right to reject him.
Every right not to trust him.
But she looked at him and simply said, “Yes.”
And he kissed her.
EVE FROZE AS Asa’s lips touched hers. She wanted this—wanted to at least try to do this with Asa. She’d reached a breaking point this afternoon, running to Val’s house, trembling with fear and horror, not knowing if she was remembering Lord Hampston or if it was all just a terrible coincidence. In some ways it didn’t matter. She couldn’t go on like this, a half woman, crouching alone and afraid inside a glass cage made of memories and nightmares.
She wanted to live.
And she wanted Asa with an unfurling passion that trembled with possibility. So she kissed him, but she froze because she was waiting for the old fear. The revulsion.
Except it never came.
His lips were soft on hers, the scrape of his stubble an exotic juxtaposition.
She shivered and realized to her surprise that the only thing she felt was excitement.
He drew back on a regretful sigh.
Eve opened her eyes and found Asa looking at her with his brows drawn together. “Eve? Do you want me to stop?”
“No.” She wasn’t going to lose this opportunity because of a misunderstanding. She hadn’t frozen from disgust but from caution.
His expression sharpened. “Then kiss me.”
Eve clutched his coat and leaned into him, crushing her mouth against his, clumsily chasing that excitement she’d felt before. She couldn’t lose it now.
She couldn’t.
Oh! There it was. She shivered as he tilted his face, sweetly fitting their lips together. He brushed his mouth back and forth over hers until she relaxed from her anxious searching, until her lips softened.
Until her lips parted under his.
Even then he was slow, as if he waited for some signal from her. He pressed tender kisses to her mouth. Sharing his breath with her.
And then she felt a moist touch.
His tongue swept over her bottom lip, teasing, flirting, so softly that she couldn’t help but chase it, her own tongue venturing out to meet his, a little frustrated now by how gentle he was being with her.
Asa wasn’t a gentle man by any means. In some ways that was what she loved about him—more, it was what she wanted from him.
She nipped at the corner of his mouth.
He laughed under his breath then, seeming to understand her unspoken plea, as he widened his mouth. He bit at her lips, groaned against her mouth. He drew her into his arms, into his embrace, his wide shoulders surrounding her as he tilted her head back over his arm. He was all around her, holding her, strong and big, and she ought to be afraid.
Ought to be struggling to escape.
Instead she pressed closer to him, feeling the beat of his heart under her fingertips, striving to meet that wild animal within him.
His palm pressed lightly against her jaw as he slipped his tongue into her mouth, sliding it against hers. She closed her lips, instinctively wanting to keep him inside her. Tentatively she suckled at his tongue, and that must’ve been the right thing to do, for he groaned.
He pulled back, laying his forehead against hers, his eyes closed, his breath coming in pants.
She was astonished to see that his big body was trembling.
Was that her doing? Did she arouse him so much? It made her proud, that thought: that she, a plain, rather ordinary woman, should make Asa Makepeace, the most masculine man she’d ever known, tremble with passion.
He opened his eyes and the green was the darkest jade. “Will you show me your bedroom, Eve Dinwoody?”
She replied without hesitation. Without doubt. “Yes.”
She stood and held out her hand to him, her heart beating in her bosom so fast she thought he must hear it.
He rose, broad and alive—so alive—and all hers for this small moment in time.
Eve had always been a sensible woman, and a sensible woman would be a fool to pass up what Asa Makepeace had to offer.
So she led him without speaking down the hall and to her bedroom.
This was her inner sanctuary and she looked at it anew, wondering what he thought of it. Her sitting room was comfortable. Prettily put together with practical pieces.
But in her bedroom Eve let a little indulgence show.
The walls were painted palest blue, with white pilasters, wainscoting, and woodwork. A dainty desk sat in a bay window, gray-blue damask drapes pulled to the side so that she might look over her back garden when she sat to write letters.
A gilt marble-and-rosewood chest of drawers sat against one wall. On the opposite was a white marble fireplace, the tile surrounding the hearth in blue and white. And in the corner sat her bed. It was piled with gray-blue damask cushions, and drapes of the same color were held back by cords of midnight blue velvet.
Eve turned to Asa and found him watching her. He was smiling.
“Come,” he said, “will you lie with me?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, and walked to the bed. She stopped there and found she wasn’t sure what to do next.
What exactly did he want of her?
She almost fled then, but he came behind her, his heat surrounding her. If any other man had stood so close to her she might’ve panicked.
But this was Asa and he was the man she wanted.
He laid his palms on her waist and she felt his breath on her bare nape. Then his lips as he kissed her.
“May I take your hair down?” he whispered in her ear.
She nodded jerkily, then held her breath.
His hands drifted upward from her waist, over her sides, up her shoulders, and into her hair. He’d deliberately kept away from her breasts, and she wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or resentful.
Then he began plucking the pins from her hair, carefully, without touching her anywhere else, and Eve began to wonder if hair could possibly be erotic.
She found herself holding her breath, listening to his deep, even exhalations as he worked, her hair loosening and beginning to slide.
It fell all at once, uncoiling heavily over her shoulders. She turned her head to look at him, suddenly shy.
He was staring at her hair.
“It’s beautiful,” he murmured, burying his fingers in the long tresses, gently working apart the strands, lifting and spreading them. “Like liquid gold.” He suddenly lifted the mass to his face. “And perfumed. Like flowers.”
“Lily of the valley.” He made her feel exotic, still dressed in her sensible gray frock, only her hair loose about her shoulders.
“Lily of the valley,” he murmured. “I’ll remember that scent forever now, and whenever I smell it again I’ll think of you, Eve Dinwoody. You’ll be haunting my tomorrows evermore.”
She gasped and turned, looking up at him. She’d thought that he’d be smiling teasingly at his words, but
he looked quite serious and she stared at him in wonder. Had he always carried this part of himself inside? This wild poetic lover? If so, he’d hidden it well underneath the aggressive, foulmouthed theater manager. She had a secret fondness for the crass theater manager, but the poet…
She swallowed, suddenly nervous.
She might come to love a wild poet.
He framed her face with his palms and leaned down to kiss her. On her forehead, drifting down to her cheeks, brushing like silk over her mouth.
“Let me undress you, Eve?” His words whispered against her lips, a kiss in and of themselves.
She nodded, afraid to speak.
He straightened, looking at her, then reached slowly for the gauze fichu tucked into her bodice. “May I?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
He tugged, drawing the ends out from underneath the laces of her bodice. He looked down as he did, examining the tops of her breasts, revealed by her square-necked bodice.
“Your skin is like white velvet.” He touched the laces of her bodice. “May I?”
“Yes.” She swallowed, wondering if he would ask her for each article of clothing she wore. Should she tell him he had no need? But they gave her control of the moment, his inquiries.
She liked that.
Eve looked down and watched as his blunt, tanned fingers deftly unlaced her bodice.
He caught the edges, then glanced up, meeting her eyes. “May I?”
“Yes.”
“Then lift your arms for me.”
She raised her arms and he drew the tight sleeves off her, carefully placing the bodice over a chair.
She stood in stays, skirts, chemise, stockings, and shoes.
He placed his hands on the strings that tied her skirts to her waist. “May I?”
She nodded.
He unknotted the strings as she tried to steady her breathing.
Then her skirt slipped to the floor.
She looked up expectantly, and a smile flickered across his lips as he tapped the laces of her stays. “May I?”
Sweetest Scoundrel Page 20
