by Tracy Sumner
Julian’s gaze bounced to her hand. “This is no wager. It’s a business transaction.”
“Call it an agreement if that better suits.” She raised her voice to climb above the argument between Ranier and Maitland, which had escalated to gentlemanly fisticuffs. “Between friends.”
“Name them then,” he bit out, the sconce’s light sparking off his glass and tossing a prism on the chalked floor, “the terms for this friendly agreement.”
She ticked off the points on her fingers. “The lodge. The night after we return. A full night. Oh”—she pointed—“and the next morning. No cheating about the time. No running out at dawn. Let them bring another round of chocolate. I want to utilize every benefit of country living.”
He took her arm, gently moving her aside as Everleigh, who’d been knocked off his feet by a blow to the chest, slid to a stop between them.
“Many thanks, Beauchamp,” Everleigh said after accepting Julian’s help up, then he shoved through the crowd and leaped back into the fray.
“What about clothing?” Julian asked, nonchalantly wiping Everleigh’s blood on his coat.
“Clothing?”
“Am I to render these services with or without clothing?” His gaze sliced through her, and her breath caught at the savage look on his face. All refuted by his steady voice, as if nothing monumental transpired. “Just so I’m adequately prepared should I accept.”
She tried to recall the images she’d seen in the French text in the library in Gloucestershire, the one hidden on a top shelf behind a row of Dickens’ first editions. Her cheeks stung as she imagined Julian leading her through those acrobatic poses. Had the people in the drawings been clothed? She pulled her cheek between her teeth in thought. “I would guess both are possible.”
“They are.” Dazed, he looked to be running through the possibilities himself.
“That is to say, unclothed and maybe—” She chanced a glance at him and slipped beneath the waves. This expression she had seen once before, when he was poised above her, his hips locked in place as he created a steady rhythm, crowding her into the floor. She’d been close to orgasm then, something she’d only experienced in the privacy of her bedchamber. Always in fantasy partnership with the brooding man standing before her.
If she told him this, they might not make it out of the ballroom, so she kept it to herself.
The scuffle concluded, and the circle surrounding the men disbanded, people scattering across and into their path. Most were laughing, champagne in hand, including the two combatants, the gala a supreme success in terms of entertainment value. Piper wished she hadn’t added to the significance of the evening, but, if she were honest, knew she had. Julian nodded to those who called out to him; Piper did the same with a bland look that offered no invitation to deepen the connection. She wanted to tuck herself in a corner and hide. The color parade assaulting her was beginning to vex.
The orchestra started to play, and Mozart’s haunting composition echoed through the ballroom. Julian dug his watch from his waistcoat, flipped open the case, and glanced at it with a sigh. He had done a stellar job of avoiding her gaze for the last five minutes.
“Jules,” she said, question or plea she wasn’t sure.
Impeccably timed, Finn interrupted, out of breath from elbowing his way through the crowd, a tumbler of what looked to be brandy in each hand. His cravat was askew, his hair a glorious tangle, his cheeks rosy, too rosy for a march across a ballroom. With a sinking feeling, Piper wondered what female had sucked him in and spit him out.
His grin spoke of an unparalleled experience.
Julian examined Finn from head to toe, his aura shredding. Piper felt a flash of compassion; she and Finn couldn’t make a sound decision between them.
“What a crush!” Finn thrust a tumbler in her hand. Julian took the other and in return, presented his empty one, which Finn accepted with a scowl. “I could barely make it across the room. Gads, the thoughts running through the minds of these deviants. I didn’t even have to touch anyone to get most of it.”
“A far easier journey if you were ugly,” Julian murmured.
Finn laughed, pursing his lips. “Yes, but then everything else would be more difficult.”
“True,” Julian agreed and took a slow sip. The movement brought her regard to his mouth, along with the remembrance of him working her bottom lip between his teeth, then smoothing with his tongue just after. Awareness surged with more force than a river of brandy. Her glass shifted, and an amber drop dribbled on her glove. Adrift, she touched the damp spot to her cheek.
Lost to another time, another place.
Julian tracked the movement, and when he spoke, his voice was husky. “Meet me at the servant’s staircase off the kitchen. North side of the house. Thirty minutes. Don’t be late.” He jabbed his finger in Finn’s chest. “Not one second.”
Finn jerked his thumb back as if to say: what about her? Piper opened her mouth to tell them she was bloody well coming—
“Bring her,” he said and elbowed his way into the throng. He glanced over his shoulder before the crowd gobbled him up. There was bold promise in that look. “I can’t fight us both.”
Then he was gone.
Sidonie gazed from the carriage window at the theatre of society on full display. The Duke’s townhouse was ablaze. Every window lit, a sea of footmen, maids, and partygoers mingling as they would not dare if they encountered each other on the street. She’d been born into that glittering life. Destined for an extraordinary existence of frivolity until her mind left her, vacated rather abruptly without notice, leaving her a quaking shell.
Her yearning to interact with the healer—Piper—had not abated, but Sidonie was determined to succeed where they had failed miserably before. Rushing in without full understanding of the situation had led to the earl’s blood staining her hands. She was heavily armed this time—but so was Julian Alexander. “Vicomte,” she whispered, the language of her country calming her. Harbingdon would not make an easy target, surrounded by thick forest and secured at every split in the wood. And there had been no opportunity in London. The boy, too, was proving harder to read, gaining strength, likely from the healer, who was by his side.
The time was not right, not yet.
Sidonie let the curtain fall as she collapsed against the carriage seat.
Soon, the rebellious girl would step outside her guarded world because her nature demanded it; she would do what she’d done before and create chaos.
Sidonie would be waiting.
Chapter 13
One man loved the pilgrim soul in you.
~William Butler Yeats
Julian learned much about Piper that night.
Intriguing, wondrous aspects of her personality, which only served to heighten his fascination. Hammer on the nail-of-a-belief that she was made for him.
Composed under pressure, fearless actually, and curious in spades, she made an excellent thief.
Christ, he thought and observed her calmly riffling through the Duke of Ashcroft’s desk mostly by feel alone, as the moonlight filtering through the open drapes was paltry at best. They’d decided one lamp risked enough, and it sat on the bookcase nearest him, throwing modest illumination over the chest Julian sought to crack.
Anyway, who needed lamplight when her vitality brightened the room like a thousand candles?
With a twist of Piper’s hairclip, he sent the rusty tumblers on the lock spinning, and the chest popped open. She raised a brow at his implement of choice but did not comment.
It held a varied assortment of journals. Slipping his spectacles from his coat pocket, Julian held one into the light, an image of Ashcroft a shimmer in his mind. The first entries were dated ten years ago—a long time to go it alone in their anomalous world. In a faultlessly tidy script, Ashcroft had listed instances where he’d experienced his gift. Those instances where a fire had raged out of control included the damages incurred.
Setting aside the journals,
Julian disassembled the chest.. Removed each drawer, running his finger along the dovetailed edges in search of a hidden compartment. If he found nothing else, he could steal the journals, but torturing a man already tortured wasn’t the plan. To protect what was his—a compulsory response to the break-in—was.
Julian moved the lamp to the desk, the money clip he’d returned sitting atop a stack of books on the occult. Pages were folded and spattered with ink, speaking to frenzied research. The chime of a hall clock had him swearing under his breath. He glanced at Piper, but she remained relaxed and efficient, on her knees as she searched the lower drawers.
“This desk is very similar to one in the earl’s library. There was a concealed partition behind the pigeonholes.” She stretched, and he tried, he really did, to ignore the thrust of her breasts beneath silk. Even amidst bloody intrigue he wanted no part of, his cock gave notice where it wished this search was occurring. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth in concentration, her hands doing undeniably marvelous things to Ashcroft’s mahogany.
He felt run aground, abandoned on an island of enchantment and vacillation.
He imagined sweeping books to the floor and hoisting her atop the more-than-spacious desk. Bending her over the glossy surface and moving in behind her, sliding inside and showing her everything she wanted to know.
I want you to show me.
He’d never heard a more erotic declaration in his life.
“There was a trick to finding it,” Piper said.
He shoved his spectacles up. “Pardon?” He had completely lost the direction of the conversation.
Laughing softly, she examined the adjustable drawer, giving it a firm tug. “A small spring in the earl’s, right about here.” She gestured for light, and Julian scooted the lamp closer, pressing his hands to the desk to keep them from following commands his mind issued at rapid speed.
Brush the lock of hair from her cheek.
Tilt her head and kiss her before she knows it’s coming.
Before you can stop yourself.
She hummed low in her throat and probed the dovetailed edges. Julian pushed off the desk, rocking back on his heels. Was that the sound she would make as he thrust inside her? Her hands sliding over his skin with the same care and concentration as that drawer?
He suddenly, very urgently, wanted a drink. Or three. Piper wasn’t his partner in crime, no matter the comfort he experienced working alongside her. She was wreaking havoc, creating disenchantment with his uninspired but orderly life. Understanding this, he leaned in as her enticing scent caught him in a chokehold, her breathless exhalations leading his heart on a merry chase. His erection intensified until he was as hard as the mahogany he perched on, as hard as the damned ballroom floor.
While he brooded, the spring clicked, and the bedeviling woman shook her fist in triumph. “Gotcha.” She removed the drawer’s false back, drawing forth a velvet satchel the color of a bruised sky. “Ah, a treasure of”—her words clipped off as she moved the bag into the light—“my grandfather’s.”
Julian held out his hand, and she transferred the package, the embroidered initials coming into view.
ELC.
Edward Lucien Chesterfield. The ninth Earl of Montclaire.
Julian opened the bag, his hand shaking. A vision of the earl and Ashcroft in a room he didn’t recognize struck him. He made a rough sound and stumbled back.
So this was how the Duke was surviving.
“What did you see?” Piper reached for him.
Julian grabbed her wrist, arresting the movement, then releasing her before the vision spread. Even this brief touch cleared his mind like bristles across a filthy floor. With a shake of the bag, the earl’s crystal rolled into his palm, cold against his flushed skin. “Fluorite.” Thankfully, gems didn’t transmit, or he’d have been on his knees as this one carried so many tales.
“The soul catcher,” she breathed. “I thought it—”
Drunken laughter in the hallway had Julian rushing to her side and pulling her to a crouch. He held his finger to her lips, dipping his head so their eyes were level. They’d locked the door, and left Finn to guard, but the situation was admittedly precarious. The voices in the hall lingered, a thump as a body, or bodies met the wall in what sounded like an amorous collision. Finn, bless him, cajoled the couple into choosing another area with the implication he’d already claimed this spot.
Piper’s gaze shifted, taking a leisurely path down his body, searing his skin as cleanly as a glowing torch tip. Even in this light, he could see desire shading her eyes the bottomless green he loved so much. She was done hiding her hunger because everything was there for him to see.
He didn’t know if he could fight her when two infinitesimal letters—no—were all separating them. A little word, barely a breath if you whispered it against one’s skin or into their waiting mouth.
He flipped the crystal from one hand to the other, tempted to forget his promise to her grandfather, an oath he no longer felt sure was the most capable plan. What would happen if he allowed his fascination free rein?
What if he let it consume them both and to hell with the consequences? Maybe his approach was more stringent than required.
Why not chose Piper’s instead?
She was clever, intelligent to a fault, and she believed one night of passion would excise the demon, lessen the enthrallment between them. Enthrallment sitting there like Henry, an obstinate, glowering dog.
Why not a swift, indulgent kick to get it moving?
They could ravage each other and be sounder for it. He could introduce her to a sensual world in the way women wanted and men often ruined: tenderly, skillfully, attentively. He, in turn, could overcome his fixation.
Truly, how could touching her be as good as he’d dreamed?
Nothing was ever as good as one dreamed.
In the end, he would get over her. She would get over him.
“Have you decided?” she asked, the supple turn of her lips highlighted by a most accommodating band of moonlight. Dust motes danced in the strip, tiny glistening points in a world that suddenly seemed infinite. Leaning in, she slipped the crystal from his hand and began to roll it between her palms. She entranced, and he was held captive by everything about her.
He always had been.
“Decided?” His voice was thick with longing. If he heard it, she obviously could.
In return, her smile grew with feminine wisdom, age-old and carnal. “If you’re going to accept the agreement.”
There was nothing between them but darkness, moonlight, and a magical stone the earl had gifted to another. Desire warred with apprehension, but desire ruled.
Removing his spectacles, he tucked them in his coat pocket.
“So this means—”
He laid his finger over her mouth with a murmured hush. Her eyes were bright, glorious, and fixed on him. He was a fool. He couldn’t look away if a thief had a knife to his back when he’d spent the better part of their relationship renouncing what she did to him. “Let me show you a better kiss this time,” he whispered, sliding his thumb along the seam of her lips, gaining entrance with her soft inhalation. Her tongue touched the tip, and he questioned how long he could play this game. “One where I’m not fighting you, fighting myself.”
“Yes,” she said and swayed into him, the crystal tumbling to the carpet and rolling to a stop by her slipper. It flared, calming the aura surrounding them, reminding her of its proposed power.
Catching her, he cradled her face and brought her close enough to record all those treasures he had missed holding himself so far away. Parts of her he would add to his next painting. Freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose, a slight crook in her front tooth, she was stunning.
And the only person he wanted to see in this incredibly intimate way ever again.
More than the physical, this was the soul.
“What can I teach you, Yank?”
Her jaw tensed beneath his palm,
her body trembling. Or maybe it was his, being played, an instrument of her pleasure. Her hands found his waist, slid beneath his coat, and up his back. Clothing, too much damn clothing sat between them, he agreed with her whispered entreaty.
“What can I give you?”
She answered with pure, fearless sweetness: “Everything.”
“Everything,” he vowed and molded his lips to hers.
Years later, she would recall the moment with perfect clarity.
Momentous, because it was the first time Julian gave of himself fully.
As he pulled her to him with a tortured moan torn deep from his throat, she comprehended, finally, the exceptional force of his desire.
And the overwhelming possibility of her own.
She wanted to explore his body, every swell of muscle, every rise of sinew. She wanted all of him. All.
More, she thought, or perhaps it was a murmur against his lips because he reacted, pinning her to the wall as he angled her head until, ah, yes…
Their lips melded, faultless penetration. This was the wondrous connection he’d held from her.
Beneath his coat, she dug her nails into crisp linen as he growled and arched into the touch. Going on instinct, she lowered her mouth to his neck and sucked a patch of skin just beneath his jaw between her teeth. Because it brought such bliss, the taste and smell of him rushing through her, she repeated the act just above his stiff shirt collar, marking him.
He blinked, lashes fluttering. So handsome in the wash of moonlight, eyes a slate glimmer in the darkness. She couldn’t stop herself from framing his face, words she wasn’t even sure made sense leaving her. He groaned and lifted her from her crouched spot, swept the books from the desk and placed her bottom atop it as his lips captured hers.
The perfect fit they’d found was a robust memory, and their bodies evoked it with ease.
Julian stepped between her legs, nudging them wide, a refreshing burst of air sweeping her ankles as he yanked her skirt high. Moving in, he sighed her name, taking her bottom lip between his and biting gently. A low moan she couldn’t contain slipped free, and she twisted atop the desk, grasping his shoulders, searching for deliverance. The flood of heat between her thighs should have been disconcerting when it felt like a victory.