Two Secret Sins

by Anna Campbell

  When Eliot noticed the direction of her gaze, a wry smile curved his mouth. “Sorry about the Ming vase.”

  She stifled horrified laughter. “Merton will have a fit. He loves my china more than he loves his wife, I vow.”

  Eliot laughed, too, as he reached up to straighten the picture beside her head. Then he drew her close enough for a gentle kiss. His tenderness brought tears to her eyes, so when she pulled away and stared at him, candlelight formed a halo around his golden head. The awful truth was that while she might once have mocked him as a saint, now she knew how fine he really was.

  Verena was sickly aware that she was nowhere near good enough for him.

  Chapter 11

  Eliot stirred and tightened his arms around a sleepy, naked Verena. He was pleasantly tired and physically satisfied, and at ease with the world in a way that he hadn’t been since she’d broken with him. Since before that. He’d long ago grown discontented with the small part of herself that Verena was willing to share. But in asking for more, he’d ended up with nothing at all. How desolate that had left him.

  He had no idea what time it was. Somewhere in the early hours. The fire had burned down, and the candles guttered in puddles of wax.

  Verena had never before let him stay the night. He liked sleeping with her. He liked it very much indeed.

  When they’d retired to her room, they’d taken their time making love. She’d asked him to stroke her and he’d obliged with relish, lingering over her breasts and giving her another climax with his mouth on her quim. Then he’d spent what felt like half an eternity in heaven, rocking against her slowly until they both reached a peak of such rapturous delight that he felt made anew.

  Now she lay with her back pressed against him, her silky hair drifting over them. He nuzzled it out of the way so he could drop a kiss on her bare shoulder, while his hand shifted to cup one full breast. He closed his eyes to sleep again, but she made a drowsy murmur and slid closer.

  “I went to sleep,” she murmured. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “So did I,” he said, cuddling her closer. Their Friday afternoons had been glorious, but short and packed with sensual adventure. He certainly wasn’t complaining about that, but there was such sweet contentment in holding the woman he loved in his arms on a cold night and knowing that he didn’t need to be anywhere else.

  “I haven’t been sleeping since you went away,” she said with a yawn.

  Since she’d given him orders to go, rather than since he went away, but he was too in charity with the world right now to argue the point. “Me either.”

  She shifted in his arms, turning to kiss him. He tasted longing on her lips and something that might be love.

  Verena drew away and studied him through the dimness. Her fingers trailed over his face, tracing the line of cheekbones and nose and jaw, as if she learned him by touch alone. He closed his eyes and made a sound that was close to a purr.

  “I’m so glad you came back, Eliot.”

  His blood warmed under her searching hand. “So am I.”

  “I hoped you’d come to your senses. We already have so much. Why spoil it with asking for the impossible? Will you come to me again on Friday?”

  His lazy enjoyment slammed to an abrupt end, as his awakening mind made reluctant sense of what she was saying. The tragedy was that she sounded so happy as she ground his heart to dust beneath her delicate heel.

  Eliot went rigid and jerked back from her caressing hand. “I’m not going back to what we had, Verena,” he said, his voice still weighted with sleep.

  He was foolish enough to pray that he’d mistaken what she said. The thorny silence that descended told him that he hoped in vain.

  She wriggled out of his arms and pushed up against the pillows until she rose above him. “But you came with me when I invited you tonight.”

  A sour grunt of laughter greeted that remark. “Of course I bloody well did. I’ve been a wreck without you. Having you back has been like rain in the desert.”

  “Then be my lover again, Eliot,” she said, and he knew she frowned at him through the darkness. “I want you. You want me. We’re wretched when we’re apart.”

  A great weight of grim misery rolled over him. More painful than ever, now that he’d had this reminder of what bliss he found with Verena. These last hours had been among the most spectacular of his life. Yet right now, he wished that she’d driven right past him near Green Park.

  He climbed out of the bed and lit a taper from the fire. Without looking at Verena, he prowled around the room lighting fresh candles. Just now, he couldn’t bear the sight of her. She was too beautiful and too dear. And his heart was too close to breaking for him to cope with either of those things.

  “Eliot?” she asked after a few moments, when she hadn’t received any response. “What do you say? Don’t be so stubborn, my darling. You know you’re far from ready to finish with me. Why, you went off like a rocket tonight. One touch, and you were mad for me.”

  His lips tightened, as he stared into the fire, keeping his back to her. He’d said that he had no pride when it came to Verena, but it seemed that he wasn’t yet ready to show her quite how devastated he was right now. “I’m always mad for you. I’ve been mad for you from the first word you spoke to me.”

  “Then don’t let pride take you away. I’m mad for you, too.”

  Her declaration didn’t ease his unhappiness. He started to gather his clothes, which took longer than it should. He’d flung his garments everywhere, once he made it into the privacy of her bedroom. From the hallway where he’d taken her up against the wall, where any of the servants could have walked past and caught them.

  Mad for her, indeed.

  “Aren’t you going to answer me?” Verena said, more in puzzlement than anger, as she watched him head toward the dressing room.

  “Not while I’m buck naked,” he said with a calmness that he didn’t feel.

  She glared at him, although he caught a glimpse of the familiar fear. How odd to realize now that he’d always thought her the bravest woman he knew, yet the tragic truth was that she was crippled by terror. Perhaps the fact that she lived with that terror, yet defied it with every breath, constituted her true bravery.

  “In that case, let yourself out from the dressing room and go home.” She was trying to sound like the woman who had sent him away at the Lumsden ball. She wasn’t succeeding. “We have nothing more to say to each other.”

  He gave her a sad smile. “We’ve got a lifetime of things to say to each other, if only you’d realize it, Verena. But I’ll start with tonight.”

  She was back to looking sulky, and she’d pulled the covers up to her chin, as if they defended her against him. “You’re just going to ask me to marry you again.”

  “Probably.”

  “And I’ll just say no again.”

  “That’s your right.”

  “So you may as well go.”

  As he trudged through to the dressing room, he didn’t answer. He had things to say, but he felt too vulnerable putting his heart on the line yet again, when he stood in front of Verena without a stitch to cover him. Already he felt as if his longing heart beat on the outside of his body, providing a clear target for Verena’s arrows.

  She’d still most likely strike him down, but at least black evening wear would hide the blood.

  ***

  Verena stayed where she was and waited to hear the door close from the dressing room to the outer corridor. Her heart was heavy, even as her body glowed with physical pleasure. But then, Eliot’s skill as a lover had never been in doubt. It was everything else that was the problem. Everything else made her so angry that she’d happily smash another Chinese vase over his head. And keep on smashing, until the house was devoid of expensive porcelain, and he saw sense.

  It had been a mistake to stop and take him up in her carriage. It had been even more of a mistake to invite him in. After that, the mistakes had piled one on top of the other so fast. Now
they towered so high that they threatened to collapse and crush her.

  But she’d been so downhearted and sunk in a mire of longing when she saw the familiar silhouette walking along Piccadilly in the dark. It had seemed like fate offered her another chance with Eliot.

  It turned out that fate was a nasty bitch.

  What fate offered was a reminder of the magic he could make with her body – as if she needed that, after weeks of sexual frustration! Then a final ending to their affair.

  Because it seemed that he hadn’t given up his lunatic notion to marry her, while she only wanted to go back to having him as her lover. There would be no compromise. She’d seen his face when he left the room. Never in her life had she seen a man look so determined.

  Well, she was determined, too.

  Not that she took any joy from it.

  After this, she could never invite him back into her bed, which meant no more Eliot for her. Not just no more of those adept hands and his powerful possession. But no more talking to Eliot, or laughing with Eliot, or finding in Eliot’s kindness a safe refuge from an often cruel world.

  It was enough to make a girl want to stage a tantrum and throw things and curse the path her life had taken.

  Why, oh, why had her perfect lover decided to change things? Plague take Eliot, the gallant, muddleheaded beefwit. She should have known from the first that he’d cause her trouble.

  Verena was in such a lather of temper and regret that when she heard the snick of a latch, she didn’t immediately realize that it was the door to her room. She was so worked up that she felt like she’d swallowed a hive full of angry bees, buzzing to be free and stinging her over and over.

  How mortifying that Eliot should catch her with tears pouring down her face. When George died, she’d vowed that she’d never again cry over a man. To hell with Eliot Ridley, he turned her into a liar as well as a soggy mess.

  “Oh, Verena…” he said with such remorse in his voice that she couldn’t bite back a shuddering sob. Remorse and love, although she didn’t want to hear the fondness underlining the dismay. “It’s not the end of the world.”

  Her hands clenched in the blankets, as she drew them higher. An absurd action, as there wasn’t an inch of her naked form that Eliot hadn’t explored to their mutual enjoyment. “Yes, it is.”

  Through bleary eyes, she watched his smile turn tender. Which didn’t do much to stop her bawling. Having a lover who wanted her was nothing new. But only Eliot ever looked at her as if he lived to cherish her. She’d miss that, too, devil take him.

  Why did he have to adopt this stupid stance? Why couldn’t he be what she wanted him to be?

  Except so often before, other people had put her on the receiving end of that wish. Starting with her overbearing prig of a father. He’d wanted a quiet, obedient, proper daughter, and he’d done his best to achieve that with his fists and other punishments. He’d never defeated her spirit. Nor had George, who had used similar methods of coercion.

  She’d never bowed to him either, not in her heart. Knowing that he’d failed to subdue his wife had tormented him to the day he died.

  If she had a right to choose what she wanted, so did Eliot. She just wished that he wanted what she did. Futile as that wish was.

  He glanced around. “Where do you keep your handkerchiefs?”

  “In the top of the chest of drawers,” she said in a choked voice, wiping her eyes with the crumpled sheet. The smell of their bodies on the linen only reminded her of their untrammeled pleasure, and how she’d felt whole in his arms tonight in a way that she hadn’t since he’d gone away.

  “I’d lend you mine, but it’s not clean,” he said, crossing to open the drawer and pull out a flimsy square of lawn and lace.

  Nonplussed, he frowned at the handkerchief. She couldn’t blame him. His handkerchief was large and practical and made to handle a crying fit like hers. That drift of frail white that looked so ludicrous in Eliot’s elegant masculine hand was purely for show.

  He put it back and closed the drawer. He collected a towel from the top of the chest and crossed to pass it to her. “This might be more up to the job.”

  “I must look dreadful,” she said, then cursed how vain she sounded. But she’d never been a pretty crier. Her nose went red, and her eyes swelled up, and she made horrid gasping sounds, as if she drowned in quicksand.

  He responded with a wry affection that had her snuffling through another rush of tears. “You’ve looked better, I must admit.”

  Her raspy laugh surprised her. She felt like she was dying. How could she find any amusement in that? “You’re supposed to say I look beautiful anyway.”

  He didn’t smile, but took a moment to study her no doubt wet and woebegone features. “You look beautiful anyway.”

  “Liar,” she said without spite.

  The smile that he sent her was so sweet, her heart would have broken all over again if it wasn’t already ripped in two.

  “I thought you’d go,” she said, after she’d blown her nose and regained a little composure. At least she wasn’t leaking salt water like a sieve anymore, although if Eliot wasn’t careful, he’d set her off again.

  He turned from where he stoked up the fire. She knew that he was granting her some privacy. That was another thing that she’d always appreciated about Eliot. His tact.

  Dear God, she needed to stop listing what she liked about Eliot. Better to remind herself of the things she didn’t like. To her regret, that boiled down to two things. The fact that he’d set his heart on the preposterous goal of marrying her. And the harrowing truth that they would never come together again after tonight.

  Stop it, Verena, or you’ll be back howling like a banshee.

  “Do you really want me to go?” he murmured.

  No, of course she didn’t. “I don’t want to fight.”

  “Neither do I.” He glanced at the pretty gold-cased clock on the mantelpiece. “Nobody ever says the right thing at four o’clock in the morning.”

  He set the poker back in its stand and lifted her heavy velvet peignoir from the chair where her maid had left it. She supposed that after Eliot arrived, Merton must have stopped Celeste from coming up to prepare her for bed. Given what she and Eliot had done in the hallway, that was in every way a good thing.

  The girl would appreciate an early night. In a fruitless attempt to divert herself from her sorrow, Verena had been out dancing until dawn every evening this week. Until tonight, when she could no longer summon the will to pretend that she was carefree and heart-whole.

  The way things had turned out, she’d have been better off staying at the Plunket ball, where she’d have smiled until her face ached and winced at the false note in her laughter. Although nobody else ever seemed to notice how close she was to breaking.

  “Here you are.” He set the robe at the base of the bed. Having Eliot pottering around her bedroom once more was so familiar, so pleasant.

  Stop it, Verena.

  He went across to the decanter set up on the sideboard and poured two glasses of wine, giving her the chance to leave the bed unobserved and wrap the robe around her. As she tied the belt with shaking hands, she realized that he was being tactful again.

  When he did marry, as he must, whatever little poppet he chose as his wife would be blessed in her husband. Verena even knew that he’d be faithful to the hussy. He was that sort of man. Once he made a promise, he kept it.

  Eliot turned with both glasses in his hands and tilted his square chin toward the upholstered chairs in front of the fire. “I don’t want to fight anymore, but can we at least talk like two adults about where we go from here?”

  “I don’t think we go anywhere,” she said in a bleak voice, although she accepted his silent invitation and sat down.

  He didn’t respond to her statement, although as an intelligent man, he must see that she was right. “I’d at least like the chance to apologize for the way I proposed. I took you by surprise, when I was trying to be romant
ic. I wanted to sweep you off your feet.”

  Bitterness rather than genuine amusement dripped from her short laugh. “You’d never even hinted that you weren’t satisfied with our arrangement.”

  As he sat opposite her, his eyes were steady and searching. With the firelight playing over his remarkable features, he looked even more like a man from another age than usual. “Yes, I had.”

  Yes, he had. Verena recalled the odd humor that he’d been in back in March, when he came to her after returning from the country. That was when everything had changed, after he’d been away from her for a month. That was the first time he’d asked her to drive with him in the park, despite knowing that if they appeared together in public, they’d start every tongue in London wagging.

  She thought back to those awful moments at the Lumsden ball. “You know, I owe you an apology, too. I didn’t react very graciously.”

  A rueful curve twisted his lips. “‘Thank you, esteemed sir, for your kind attention. While I’m honoured by your generous offer of marriage, I fear I must decline’?”

  Again she laughed. Again she was surprised. Nothing about that encounter had ever seemed at all funny before. “I didn’t know you read Minerva Press novels.”

  “I don’t, but I’ve watched that scene at the theater a hundred times. It’s always the villain who proposes, while the heroine stays faithful to her true love hovering on the sidelines.”

  “You’re not the villain in this story, Eliot.”

  “No,” he said and took a sip of his wine as he brooded into the blazing fire. The silence lengthened, grew heavy with portent, as if a crowd of ghosts crept closer and closer to hear what came next. Without knowing why, Verena shivered. The room wasn’t cold and even if it was, her peignoir kept her warm.

  “I’m not the villain.” He raised somber gray eyes to study her. “I’m your true love.”

  Chapter 12