by Deb Marlowe
“He must have got himself into some sort of trouble,” Sterne theorized. “I cannot imagine—”
“I don’t care,” she said ruthlessly. “I don’t care what he’s done.” Even in the dim light he saw the shine of tears in her eyes. “It’s my fault! He stole it. I know he did. It may not be here, but he’s responsible. I feel it in my soul. And Hope and Tensford have been nothing but kind to me! James wouldn’t even have been at that party at Greystone, had not they not invited him, out of kindness to me! And this is how they are repaid?” He could hear the agony of regret and guilt in her words. “I could kill him! With my bare hands!”
He took a step toward her and she held out a hand to stop him. “No! Do not come near me. I’m nearly as angry with you!”
He drew a breath to defend himself, but to his horror, she burst into tears, sobbing as if her heart would break.
* * *
* * *
* * *
Oh, heaven help her. She was horrified. But she could not stop crying. She didn’t do it daintily, either. No pretty, shining tracks of tears for her. No. She sobbed and shook and blew her nose and cried buckets. She held far too many emotions to contain, and out they came, in great, sniveling sobs.
Sterne ignored her order to stay away, of course. He paused to remove his coat, then swooped in and bundled her into his arms. Carrying her into the parlor, he yanked a sheet off of a settee and settled into it, cradling her in his lap.
She cried harder, shedding grief and embarrassment and anger and hope and passion and a huge, overwhelming fear that things were not going to turn out. Not for her, nor for him. When her handkerchief grew sodden, he gave her his, and held her close, murmuring nonsense into her hair until at last, the tears, then the hiccups, stopped.
Spent, she curled into him. She’d dampened his neckcloth, but she didn’t care. He smelled like himself again, and she just breathed him in and floated in the calm that came after the storm.
“Well,” she said at last. “There’s another layer of mortification added to the bundle I’m carrying about.”
“No. Let it all go,” he ordered. “Lycett’s crimes are his own and nothing to do with you. You know neither Tensford nor his wife would ever blame you.”
“No.” She sighed. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel the truth of it.”
He stroked her hair and let his finger wander along her jaw and stop at her chin, where he tried to urge her to look up.
“No.” She shied away. “I must look a fright.”
He leaned back and ducked his head to look at her. “On the contrary. You look beautiful when you are blotchy.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. But she sat up and met his gaze.
“You are always beautiful,” he whispered.
She teared up again, but dashed them roughly away. “No. There will be no sweet talk. I’m still angry with you.”
He looked affronted. “With me? What have I done?”
“You know the answer to that.” It was an accusation. It put his back up. He stiffened, but didn’t answer.
“It’s what you haven’t done. The things you haven’t said.”
A bit of his brashness faded. He looked away.
She wouldn’t allow it. “You are almost worse than the rest of the lot,” she told him fiercely.
“The rest of the lot? Do you throw me in with your cousin?”
She sighed. “No. Of course not.”
“Who, then?” Realization dawned. “You mean with your mother’s pack of suitors?” He’d gone indignant again.
“They do not concern themselves with my hopes for the future, it’s true. But you just assumed you knew what they were.”
“I know you wouldn’t wish to be saddled with my harridan of a mother. What woman would?”
She flung an arm out. “Are we going to start a contest over who comes from a worse family? My mother is problematic as well.”
“You’ve yet to meet my father,” he grumbled.
“Has he broken into any houses lately? Stolen any artifacts? No? Then I think you’ll come out ahead.”
Reaching up, he traced a brow with his finger and cradled the side of her face. It was an effort not to lean into the heat and strength of his big hand. “Thank you,” he whispered. “For standing up to her. For defending me.”
“I would do it again. A hundred times, if I heard her speak to you in such a way.”
He leaned in and kissed her brow and her eyes closed. She gripped his wrist, where he held her. “That’s the worst part,” she whispered. “You haven’t asked me what I want, but you haven’t asked yourself, either.”
“I know what I want,” he rasped.
“Do you?” Her eyes opened and she reached down to grab his other wrist, too. “You want to study nesting behavior and family groups and community bonds because that’s what you are looking for. You want to belong. Why can’t you admit it?”
He grabbed her arms, shifted her and pulled her around so that she straddled him. “I do admit it,” he said, meeting her gaze directly. “I do want a place to belong. And I’ve found it.”
“With your friends, you mean.”
He nodded.
“They are lovely, each and every one that I’ve met. I look forward to meeting the others. I’m glad you’ve found them, that you all support each other so well.” She let out a short, sharp laugh. “But have you told yourself that they are enough?” She dropped her head. “Of course, you have.”
“They are enough. They must be. For now.”
She scowled at him. “Lie to yourself, if you wish, but not to me.” She leaned in. “And I know it for a lie.”
He let go of her, but she merely gripped him tighter. “I feel it, just as you do,” she told him fiercely. “The ease. The comfort. The delight in shared interests. The yearning for more. The extreme satisfaction of knowing the curve of your chest under my hand. The urge to tell you all of my secrets and fears, and to hear yours in return. The utter certainty that everything awaits us—everything to experience together, if only we are brave enough to claim it.”
She slid her hands up, over his shoulders. She cradled his face in both hands. “We are connected. We are meant for each other. I’m claiming it,” she whispered. She kissed him softly. Once. Twice. “I want to belong . . . to you.”
His breath came fast and deep. He was poised on a precipice. She waited while he struggled, waited to see if he would step over—or away.
He did neither. He fought for equilibrium. His chest stopped rising like a bellows. He gave her no answer, save for a sad, solemn look.
She dropped her hands away. Her heart plummeted, down and down, into the shallow pool that would be her future. Bracing herself on the edge of the settee, she swung her leg to disengage from him—
And found herself yanked back.
And kissed. She found herself kissed with a devastatingly, heavy sort of desperate desire that set a match to the craving circulating in her veins and set it all ablaze, all at once.
He pressed his lips fervently along her jaw and breathed in her ear. “You drive me mad. I know I shouldn’t want you so. It’s not the time. I haven’t yet proved myself even remotely worthy. I’ve a timeline and a careful plan and you come stomping through and upend everything and I should be furious. I should be careful—for your sake, too. But all I want is to kiss you and kiss you and kiss you. One more time. Every time.”
“Kiss me, then. I’ve laid my heart bare. You know it’s what I want, too.”
He did. And she reveled in the depth of feeling in it. In the slow and hungry ardor that she could taste in the erotic exploration of his tongue. He demanded more, delved deeper and she complied, gripping his broad shoulders and giving herself over to the heat of it.
It was a martial strike of a kiss, demanding and intense and somewhat shocking—and perhaps meant as a distraction to the real invasion. This might consist of the slide of his hands, journeying up her legs, pushing her skirts away unt
il his fingers touched the warm, heretofore unplundered skin on the inside of her thigh.
She shivered. All the hairs on her neck and arms stood up. Her nipples peaked instantly, calling to him.
He answered. Her unbuttoned pelisse was pushed away. It fell to the floor behind her. She didn’t care. He was cupping her breasts. His thumbs rubbed over her nipples, right through the fabric of her bodice and stays. He pinched them both and she gasped. Her pelvis rocked against him.
He made a sound, rough and low, which delighted her. She’d made him growl.
Kisses slid down the length of her neck in a leisurely path before he buried his face in the swell of breasts. Her fingers burrowed into his hair.
A purposeful shift on his part, and suddenly the bulge of his erection pressed intimately between her legs. And he won the round, because the noise she made sounded distinctly like a squeak.
He drank it in, kissing her again, dancing his tongue across hers as his fingers returned to her thighs.
Nerves struck, then, because she didn’t know where things went from here. But she trusted him. She’d wanted this. She relaxed.
She’d known he’d make an intrepid explorer. His fingers dropped back to her thigh and pursued uncharted trails, higher and higher. It was exciting and anxiety-ridden and naughty and wonderful. She wanted to let her head fall back and her knees open and see where he would go, but she’d promised that they were in this together. She reached down and traced the outline of his member as it strained against the confines of his trousers.
He pushed himself further into her hand and grinned at her. “Do it again,” he whispered.
She did, thrilled beyond measure to be able to give back a bit of the joy he gave her. He took her hand and cupped it around the bulge between them, then returned his fingers to their pursuits. So gently, he stroked her, running soft caresses along her thigh, over her buttock, and at last coming back to stroke along the tender skin between. Soft, teasing touches, dipping further, easing her apart and touching her where her pulse pounded, and she was hot and wet and aching for more.
“I . . . You . . .” She tensed at the maelstrom of pleasure. It was unexpected, and delicious.
Her hand fell away from him. She had to brace herself as he pulled her close and buried his face in the curve of her neck. She could feel him . . . everywhere. Above and below. He explored her valleys and caressed her just where she hadn’t known she’d wanted him to.
Abruptly, he found a magical spot and she gripped his shoulder again and arched against him. He teased her, gentle then hard, quick then slow until she was nearly whimpering with need. Her body knew. As did his. They couldn’t get close enough. She pressed him to her neck and opened her legs wider, inching closer. His fingers worked magic and the other hand lifted to cup her breast. He squeezed her nipple and it was as if he’d flipped a switch inside of her, completed an arc of electric pleasure that made her moan and arch and shake. Strange ripples raced through her, from her scalp to her toes and crashed in the middle. Surely her hair was standing on end. Surely light leaked from her pores. She was on fire, soaring, heating up the cold expanse of the sky, then she collapsed against him, the flames dying. Her breathing slowed. She was an ember now, and he was the warm hearth that held her.
Slowly, slowly, she came back to herself. She had her face pressed into his chest again and for a moment she just stayed there, breathing him in. Gradually, she straightened and smiled into his solemn expression. “We’ll do it again,” she said low, sliding her hand down. “This time it’s your—
“No.” He stopped her. Pulled her hand back up.
Abashed, she stared at him.
“We cannot . . . finish,” he said decisively.
“Why not?”
“For all of the same reasons.” He sighed. “You drive me wild with wanting. I want nothing more than to give in to idea of the future you imagine. But everything is still too uncertain.”
“I am certain,” she said through clenched teeth. “Surely we can—”
“No.” He shook his head.
He was retreating again, closing up against her.
“Penelope,” he said gently. “You are . . . everything. I’ve never wanted anything more than I want you. But the fossil is not yet found, and someone could come in at any moment and I must still—” He stopped. “I want you. But it may just not be possible. And so we cannot do anything irrevocable. Not yet.”
She climbed off of him. Straightened her skirts. Smoothed her hair. “Too late,” she said coolly.
“Penelope . . .”
He said nothing more and she shook her head. “I wanted you to be the one.” She felt the tears well and fought to hold them back. “Bumbling suitors were one thing. My parents—that is harder. How can they just assume that my love and loyalty will transfer away from them? Do you know how it hurts to see them look at me as . . . transient?”
She breathed deeply. “But with you . . . we share so many interests. Everything feels easy and warm and light. I enjoy your company, so very much. We’ve proven we can work together. I thought I could convince you, could make you see we were meant to share . . . everything. Our lives.” The tears spilled over, then. “But you are just the same. You look at me and see a temporary liaison.”
They both jumped as a pounding echoed from the direction of the kitchen. He reached down and handed her the discarded pelisse. Taking it, she stared at him. The knock came again.
“Mr. Sterne?” the male voice called. “I’ve come from Lord Tensford.”
She shouldn’t be angry. She tried to convince herself. She’d once found his straightforward honesty a mark in his favor.
Until he’d turned it like a blade and cut away her dreams with it. Again. How many times was she going to make herself vulnerable, only to have him push her away? She clutched a fist to her chest. God, it hurt. She thought he was going to be the one to finally pull her close. All the way in. Without regrets or if onlys or reservations.
Angrily, she wiped her tears away. “I wish you the best of luck in finding what you are looking for,” she told him.
They both knew she wasn’t talking about a fossil.
She went to the kitchen door and admitted the footman. “I’ve a note for you to deliver, if you’ll give me a moment?”
He bowed and she went upstairs to fetch a pen and paper.
Sterne still hadn’t moved from the parlor.
Chapter 14
Sterne spent the next couple of days in Whiddon’s company, for the most part. He was on fire to do something. Accomplish something. Make some sort of forward progress.
They investigated the other men on the lists of collectors, without finding anything out of the ordinary. They watched the comings and goings at the Geological Society on Bedford Street. As a member, he was granted the right to spend time in the Society library—where he watched and listened for any talk of Stillwater, Tensford, his fossil, or the Rowland masquerade.
When he wasn’t doing that, he was working on his article. He wouldn’t even submit it to the usual journals. He would use it as a feature in the first issue of his own. He would need his two potential partners to agree, of course, but he had to finish first. It must be spectacular, vivid and thought provoking. And in order to really to a thorough job, he should do some traveling to do firsthand research. But he couldn’t do that until they found Tensford’s great, damned fish.
And so, it started it all over again.
And somehow, in the midst of all of this, he still found time to think about Penelope Munroe. He saw little of her, which was likely for the best. But he could not banish her from his thoughts. Or the feel of her skin from his fingers. Or the flow of her sweet, giving passion from his bloodstream. He was alternately numb, annoyed, profoundly sad and bemused at how he’d lost all control of the situation.
Beside him, seated at a table in the Geological Society, Whiddon sighed. “I think we are wasting our time, old man.” He kept lifting the cover of a thic
k tome and letting it fall.
Sterne did not reply.
“You feel it too, don’t you?” Whiddon gestured. “There’s nothing here. No hint of subterfuge. No current of secrecy or excitement or even watchfulness. None of them are interested in what we are doing. Most of them seem vaguely sorry for Tensford and interested in seeing the sketches of what he lost—and nothing more.”
Sterne sighed. “You are likely right. I don’t know what else to do, though.”
“I see this ending one of two ways,” Whiddon declared.
“Yes?”
“We might find Stillwater, the fossil, or both, at the Rowland masquerade.”
“Or?”
“Or we never find it at all.”
Horrified, Sterne threw up a hand. “Don’t even say such a thing.” He felt the bleak weight of such a possibility. It would alter him. Drag him down. He would be the black stain on the shine of their friendship. He shook his head. He already carried the burden of disappointment and failure in his family. He could not let it seep into the friendships that had brightened his life.
“There is a third possibility, I suppose,” Whiddon drawled.
He waited.
“Miss Munroe might be right. If her cousin stole the thing, I suppose she might yet drag the truth out of him.”
“I know she is convinced that he is involved, but I am not,” Sterne admitted.
“He hasn’t been found?”
“No one’s seen him, not since he showed up at her family’s house and found himself locked out. She was right, though, he did try to break in, but the men from the agency ran him off.”
“All that, and you don’t think he’s got himself into some sort of trouble?”
“Oh, he undoubtedly has, but though that fossil might fetch a bit of money, it wouldn’t be an amount that could settle a pile of debt.” He pursed his lips. “I heard that the Duke of Buckingham spent as much as a hundred pounds on a specimen from Lyme, but that was for one of the big reptile-like skeletons. A fish fossil won’t bring in so much, and I suspect Lycett is in for a great deal more than that.”