He folded his fingers over her shoulders and carefully set her back enough so that he could breathe.
His lungs would never recover from this day.
Lady Vale collapsed into a wet, sopping pile. Though she buried her face in her arms, broken sobs could be heard. Her weeping was the likes of which he’d never known before. He wanted to scramble away, find the nearest way out because he thought his own heart might break. Lottie seemed versed in what to do.
Her arms curled around her mother’s back, and she pulled the older woman up enough to tuck into her lap. “Come, Mama. I’m sorry.”
Lady Vale shook her head, face pressed against the poof and pile of Lottie’s skirts. “You were right.”
“I can be both right and sorry.” Over her mother’s head, her eyes met Ian’s. She dug up a wan, lost smile, but it wasn’t like her normal ones. This one he wanted to frame with his own lips and make it go away.
He didn’t have time for this. Such dramatics were beyond his experience. Hell, he shouldn’t be calling her Lottie, not when considering matters of propriety, and here he was, forever with Lottie in his mind. Her name and those pleading, lying, smiling eyes would forever be bound together.
He rubbed a hand over his temple. Etta. His sister was his bigger concern. There wasn’t a stone he was unwilling to turn in the entire city of London if it meant easing her heart and mind.
That didn’t leave much time for rescuing kittens or puppies or ladies who were more than a little bit insane.
He pushed to his feet, unwilling to admit how unsteady he felt. His head swam and his vision blurred. Taking a moment to breathe, one hand on the rough bark of the oak that had caused all this trouble, he looked out over the small clearing. “Is this area often frequented?”
“No.” Lottie petted and patted her mother’s hair. “It’s quiet. Most people stick to the paths and the boat launches.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.”
She cast an apologetic smile at him. “I’m afraid you’ll have to venture out to find someone.”
Indeed he did once he managed to corral his rubbery legs. At the path, he caught the first waif he saw by the shoulder. “Aye, guv,” it squawked. “I was just on the way to me lushery, mind yer own.”
From the child’s dirty face and bedraggled hair, Ian couldn’t tell if he’d caught a boy or a girl. The trousers meant probably male. “I need an errand run.”
The urchin’s entire demeanor changed. He gave a quick nod, tugging on his filthy shirtfront. “Two pence and I’m your boy.”
“Here’s one,” Ian said, digging in his pocket. But he’d apparently lost every bit of change at the bottom of that damned pond. “That is, you’ll get both once you run across the way to number nineteen Cheyne. Tell them there’s been an accident and we need a cart.”
“Promise you’ll pay?” the boy questioned.
Ian couldn’t help his laugh, though he probably seemed more than a little crazy himself. He was soaking wet in the middle of a public park. His mind was twenty feet behind him on a redheaded girl who seemed so unbearably lost in her own laughter. “I’ll pay. Oh God, I’ll pay. One way or the other.”
Chapter Six
By the time a handful of servants came from the house and got Mama bundled in a blanket, then tucked into a cart, Lottie almost felt like she had a hold of herself. Almost.
Mostly she was a hysterical mess trying to keep her bits and pieces from flying away at the edges.
She walked behind the cart, a shawl folded around her shoulders and elbows. Though she kept her head down, she wasn’t sure if it was to avoid the censure she might see from neighbors—or to avoid Ian’s gaze.
Sir Ian, she reminded herself. She had no claim to call him by his Christian name. Yet she couldn’t rid herself of the chant in her head. Ian saved my mama. Ian saved my mama.
Ian had done what she’d failed to do so many times.
Her discipline failed, and she couldn’t help but look at him out of the corner of her eyes. She glimpsed enough to see the carved lines down his cheeks and the solemn downturn of his lips. That active mouth of his was completely stilled.
At the house, Mama was bustled upstairs by a handful of servants who acted with an extra measure of solicitousness. As well they should. Lottie stood at the base of the stairs and glared.
This never should have been allowed to happen. They had protocols in place, all of which had apparently been ignored. Nicolette was supposed to attend Mama when she left the house, and if Mama insisted, Lottie should’ve been notified. Immediately.
“If it’s no inconvenience, I’d borrow your carriage to return home.” The calm, wry words jerked Lottie’s attention around.
“Oh!” she said as she spun toward him. “No. Certainly not.”
His eyebrows lifted as one, in an expression that said he quite dearly held back a stream of words. He needed to go home. Bedraggled wasn’t the word. He carried his suit coat over one arm, and his shirt’s thin linen clung to his skin.
Clung. To his skin.
Beneath was the slightly darker outline of a sleeveless undershirt. But sweet heaven and the virgin’s baby, where had all that muscle come from? His shoulders weren’t wide, but they were assuredly deep—layered with stacked weight that spoke of strong muscles and arms that were built for cradling women and banging steel around. A sword.
With that build, he ought to be carrying a sword.
He had the temerity to make it worse. “Lottie?” he asked. Her name, but it was enough. A deep, purring curl that worst of all, she knew he didn’t intend her to take in a tempting manner.
She pressed her hands flat over her stomach to keep in the tumbling feelings that threatened to shake away her calm. “That is, we cannot possibly send you home in such a state.” She snapped her fingers, and a footman popped in. “Andrew will take you to a spare bedroom. We’ll either get your clothes cleaned up and dried, or we’ll find you something else to wear home.”
“It’s quite all right.” His hair was plastered to his forehead, the dark brown strands almost black. She wanted to smooth them back. His skin might be cool to the touch. She could warm him.
“I insist. It’s the least we can do.” Her voice broke. Cracked and whistled away like a lesser person without control of her emotions. She stopped. Pressed her palms flat together and ignored the sticky sheen of sweat between them. “I would appreciate the chance to bestow our hospitality.”
He saw too bloody much. The way he looked at her. Looked into her. Sympathy turned his eyes warm, and she wanted to fold her forehead to his surprisingly strong chest. Let the worries melt away.
If only it were ever that easy.
He nodded. “All right.”
She had him seen to a guest bedroom, and then she ran to her own on the floor above. Only once she was in the privacy of her own rooms did she dare turn her attention downward. She flinched at the muddy, bedraggled hem of her dress.
She’d loved the pale purple silk when she’d seen it, and she’d selected the silver cording to go with it, but that mattered little now. Six inches of dirt ringed the bottom, and mother’s clutching hands had streaked smudges all over the lap.
This was why they lived in Chelsea. This was why she kept Mama away from everyone else. Things exploded, and her humiliation turned into everyone’s purview. She couldn’t think of that now.
The best way to push it away was always to find something else to concentrate on. She’d spent years pouring effort into the school and her friends. She had enough outside interests to absorb her time, keeping the school from tipping into destruction. Fallout from any scandal with regards to Patricia would be one scandal too much.
This was part of why she’d never marry. She never wanted to bring a new person into her crazy world. That wasn’t considering her fear of becoming her mother. Mama’s madness reached its peak with having Lottie—as it had with her grandmother as well, though they’d managed to hide that from the world
at large. Everyone thought her lake drowning had been accidental.
Calling her maid to assist, Lottie changed as quickly as she could with shaking hands and weak knees. She found herself in the corridor downstairs at the polished mahogany door. How very innocuous.
She shouldn’t knock. It was one thing to offer him a chance to dry or that she’d sent in the tea promised two hours ago. She couldn’t put herself in that room with him alone when she didn’t know what kind of clothing had been found for him.
Her hand leapt up almost of its own will, rapping the dark wood.
“Come in,” he answered in a rough, deep voice.
She darted in. Her back pressed against the cool door, but only for a moment. Her breathing tumbled and shivered, but it wasn’t as if she were shaking. Not really. Not much.
She put on her best, brightest smile and tucked her hands behind her back. “Have you found everything to your satisfaction?”
He couldn’t have been more shocked to see her. His lips parted on silence. Someone had found him a banyan. The dark blue silk wrapped around his torso, and he wore dark trousers beneath, but under that his feet were bare. He had pale and slender feet and toes with a tiny sprinkle of dark hairs across the top.
Her fingers curled into her palms.
They’d brought the tea, and he sat at a table next to the window. A tree’s leafy green canopy obstructed most of the view through the window, but she knew that was no hardship. Next door was a brick townhouse.
She barely managed to restrain her hands from plastering along her temples. Apparently she needed some assistance keeping her brain inside her skull because she was losing it. The throbbing, heavy weight in her blood was expanding through her whole body, the way she’d always feared.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said after a long moment.
Likely he’d tired of waiting on her to be less insane. “It’s my house. I’m allowed to be anywhere I like.”
“I doubt that.” He leaned one elbow on the arm of the chair. The embroidered lapels of the robe parted enough to display three inches of his chest. There was a division between two thick muscles. He was a man who hadn’t ignored his body.
He made her not want to ignore her own body.
Losing her virginity had been an idle thought, one born of convictions and supposition. Not need. Not any amount of want. She ranged closer to the table, closer to him. Her fingers trailed over the cold metal edge of the tea tray.
“I’m all but mistress of this domain.” She nudged a plate of iced biscuits to the side in order to get at a tiny dish of cubed sugar. The piece she picked up was rough between her thumb and finger. She rubbed it over her bottom lip, then licked away the grains left behind. Sweetness burst over her tongue.
He never moved. His hands didn’t shift, nor did his feet, nor any other variety of limbs. The tilted-down angle of his chin stayed still, and he watched her from under thick, dark lashes.
Despite not moving, he was...alive. Aware of her and of the heat that flowed back and forth between them. Far, far away in the recesses of the house a timepiece chimed. Between them was the thick molasses of promise and potential. His eyes all but burned her skin, turning the stretch between her shoulder blades into a tickling, sensitive place that begged for his touch.
Except instead of following through with those silent promises, he shook his head, so very slowly. “You don’t want to head down this route.”
She edged closer. Near enough that her skirts folded over and around his calves. His knees. She managed to smile, but no one would ever know what it cost her. The way her lips felt nearly numb. She wanted to run her tongue over them, just to feel.
Maybe she could feel his mouth instead.
She still held the sugar cube. When she lifted it to his lips, it almost seemed that the room would implode from what built and wove between them. He speared her with that wicked gaze, and despite the reluctance she could feel rolling off him, the tiniest quirk of his lips said she hadn’t gone too far astray.
His lips parted for the cube. His tongue darted out enough to wet the tip of her index finger. A full-body shiver rolled over her skin and dove into her veins, turning her into both more and less.
“Maybe I don’t want to wander down the route. Maybe I want to run.”
Ian knew better.
Sugar melted on his tongue. Granules rubbed across the top of his mouth with sweet abrasion. Comparatively, her finger had little flavor, with the slightest hint of warmth and life.
She made him feel like he were Genghis Khan. A conqueror who didn’t need to be bent on taking because the slave girl was already offering him everything she had. Everything she was.
Her lush bottom lip trembled, but her eyes were wickedly hot. Her gaze scalded him, made his brain fuzzy at the edges. She wanted to be taken, or so she implied.
Unlikely.
His fingers locked around the arms of his chair, but he wasn’t sure what he braced against. The rising need, maybe. He didn’t have time for her. Hell, he shouldn’t have agreed to resting in her house long enough for his clothes to dry. The likelihood of him catching sick in a short carriage ride was negligible. But he’d wanted to help her. Those wide eyes, the obvious distress on her face. It all combined into a compelling desire to give her what she wanted.
Not taking what he wanted. “No,” he growled.
She twitched, her elbows tucking in closer to her ribs. “No?”
His hips shifted in his seat, tipping forward toward her. He slid his knees out a fraction and made room for her voluminous skirts. Apparently his own body didn’t believe his words. “It’s a common word. Do I need to explain its meaning? I’m sure you don’t hear it often.”
She smelled so sultry and edged with temptation that his mouth watered. The sugar slid and spun and washed through him. No substitution.
She laughed. “I hear it often enough.” She leaned down closer. Her hands rested on the chair’s arms. Her dress was modest. Tight. All the way up to her collarbones, with more white lace edging toward her slender, graceful neck. He hated the damn thing. “I don’t like the word.”
He couldn’t reach up and trace her pale neck the way he wanted. Otherwise all his control would snap. He shifted the first two fingers of each hand enough to rest them on her knuckles. Supple and hard in one, she was bone covered with silk. Barely concealed, barely hidden.
Though she didn’t realize it, her every emotion rode right beneath the surface. He was shocked she triumphed in society. Sharks should have scented her blood and taken her down.
“You might be improved by a little extra experience with denial.”
She shook her head. When she’d changed her clothes, someone had tried to repin her hair from the tumbled mess created during the park’s drama. They’d succeeded for the most part, but feathery red tendrils curled around her cheeks and temples. “I’m perfect the way I am. You should kiss me and find out.”
He hadn’t ever laughed while kissing a woman before, but both responses rose together. His lips took hers. His hands lifted to cup her jaw and trace over delicate ears.
All the while, laughter wove between them, trading between their lips and teeth and tongues. She kissed exactly how he’d expected. Complete abandon and rapidly growing joy.
He leaned up even as she leaned down. Her hands came to rest on his shoulders, thumbs tucking beneath the open collar. Those two touches of skin were more than enough. Their lips clung, and Ian and Lottie laughed at the same time. There wasn’t enough air between them. He’d lost control of the situation.
His body woke. Wanted. Needed.
He didn’t dare lower his hands from her face, but he tilted them. Let his thumbs coast over that tender flesh under her jaw. He felt it move and work as she so eagerly kissed him, and he loved that sense of delicacy, with that extra hint of tenderness.
She was gilt. A shiny and beautiful layer over harder, more base emotions underneath. He wanted to see underneath that artificial brigh
tness.
That wasn’t his right. He didn’t get to peel her apart the way he needed, because he’d be damned if he stayed long enough to put her back together. He’d return to his regular existence soon enough, in order to reassure Etta their world was safe. Maybe he’d revisit London to find a wife next Season, but he’d find someone more of his own sort. Ordinary.
He didn’t get to keep Lottie, which meant that he didn’t have the right to take everything he wanted.
His laughter faded.
With his hands as gentle as he could manage, he pushed her away, but he couldn’t resist one last nip of her bottom lip. Flesh gave under his teeth.
She didn’t straighten fully. With her cloud of red hair, she hovered over him like a depraved angel. He liked it. He liked her a hell of a lot, for that matter. Especially the way she grinned. “See? Perfect.”
He chuckled again, until he realized that he’d been unable to let go. His fingertips smoothed over her soft skin, from her nape to her shoulders. “I concede the point.”
Her hands were on his shoulders, and she dug in, like a kitten finding her nesting spot. She had blunt and square-tipped nails that scratched over his skin with an extra measure of temptation. Her gaze returned to his mouth. He could see beneath the gilt now. Darkness and worry altered her eyes to mossy green. “You were very brave today.”
An uncomfortable knot settled in his stomach. He hadn’t done anything unusual. “Speak nothing of it.”
She shook her head, and then sank to her knees. His chest clenched on a spiral of restriction and control. Between his outstretched legs, she was a froth of silk and lace and all that pale, pale skin. “I can’t say nothing. I owe you my thanks. My appreciation. My gratitude.” Her mouth pinched into what was likely supposed to be a smile. “There’s not enough ways in the world to say it. Or to...offer it.”
Had it really only been six hours ago that he thought her a complete jade? She was more lost than found. Offering herself as repayment for him doing what any man should...
He wanted her. There was no denying that. He wasn’t the sort to run around taking advantage of women either. Not to say there hadn’t been temptation nor times that he’d dallied in delectable activities. He always chose partners who were on an equal footing, both in terms of expectations and potentials. He couldn’t imagine any man who’d grown up with a loving mother and sweet sister could do anything else.
An Indiscreet Debutante Page 6
