Lord Anglethorpe had been very interested in her client roll. She’d been very interested in his client meetings. Celine huddled in on herself. And neither she nor Henry had been interested in progressing the relationship much further than the occasional weekend stay in Brambridge with separate rooms, or a promenade in London on a bumpy coach. That was until Celine had fallen in love with him and clumsily tried to seduce him.
He’d turned her advances away with a laugh. He’d even laughed at her when he’d seen her together with Edward in London, when he was out with his love, Agatha Beauregard.
Celine stood and walked to the table.
Edward had never demanded anything but company. And she’d never questioned it. How naïve! That a red blooded male, two red blooded males would turn down a woman handed to them on a plate.
Edward was Lord Rochester. Celine tried to look at it from all angles. Edward was Lord Rochester. Hmm. There didn’t seem to be anything different about the facts the more she looked at it.
Swallowing, she moved to the wardrobe and opened its large doors. The smell of Edward wafted out, but not from tatty brown suits, instead from sumptuous clothing, coats of Bath superfine, frock coats with ornate detailing. She pressed her face into the clothes and drew in a breath.
Yes. She could see Edward in these clothes. No matter who he was at the moment in time when he was in front of her, he was still the man that made her tingle to her toes.
She closed the door on the wardrobe and stepped back to the bed. On the dresser a hairbrush had been tossed, strands of golden blond hair tied into the bristles. Slowly she began to brush her hair, pulling the brush through the length of her curls, mixing his blonde with her midnight strands. Her breath shuddered as she reached the end, and she stopped.
“No. Don’t stop.” A gust of cold wind caused the candles around her to stream sideways.
Celine dropped the brush and turned, her hand on her bare chest. Edward perched precariously on the ledge of the now open long casement window, before tottering slightly, and falling with a heavy thud to the carpeted floor. For a few seconds he lay there before groaning and getting to his knees.
“Edward!” The frozen shock released her. She flew across the room. Gasping she clasped his body to hers. “You came back!”
Edward said nothing. And then he groaned, his breath ruffling against her chest. “I’m in heaven.” His ice cold fingers tentatively touched the undersides of her arm, trailing a burning line of sensation down to her wrists. He caught her hands in his and drew away from her. “Are you all right?”
Celine nodded. “There has been nothing to fear. I think the men outside are waiting for something…or someone.” She breathed out a shallow breath as he brought her hands to his mouth and feathered her knuckles with kisses. “Edward,” she gasped.
Her heart thumped loudly in her ears as he looked back up at her with a strange light in his eyes.
“My woman, in my bedroom,” he growled. And then he shivered.
Celine looked down at the front of her dress, the silk was darker where it had come into contact with Edward’s long lean body. “Your clothes—you are soaked!” Drawing her hands away from him she pulled his coat from his shaking shoulders and threw it over the settle in front of the fire. “Put your arms up.”
Obligingly he put his arms in the air. Celine crouched and lifted the sodden heavy jersey up over his shoulders. She pulled it higher, over his arms and his head and fumbled where the cuffs caught at his wrists.
She bit her lip in concentration. He needed his clothes off as soon as possible. She looked up at him, to find he had stilled completely. He was watching her intently, his arms outstretched, captured by the heavy pullover at the wrists
“It’s hard to know who is in control isn’t it?” he said softly.
Celine caught a glimpse of where his moist wet chemise clung lovingly to his muscled stomach. She closed her eyes. “God, yes.” It was hardly her. It seemed that she had no control over her body whatsoever. Licking her lips she dropped the pullover to the floor and retreated back to the dresser.
These feelings were so unfamiliar to her. She had caught glimpses of them as Edward had kissed her. Brief moments of spine tingling glory. But now that awareness was tinged with a need, a burning need to press her body against his and whisper ‘do what you want with me’.
And they made her afraid. Extremely afraid, for she had built her success on being aware of what her body did, and how it made others feel. And now she didn’t even have that. She had nothing.
“You didn’t tell me you were Lord Rochester.” Her throat dried, the instant that she spoke. She could see it in Edward’s eyes as he stared at her and then down at his pullover, pulling his arms through the wrists of the material with great arm flexing heaves. She wanted to pull back the words and cram them back into her body, just as she had done when she had impetuously planned and executed the kiss with Bill Standish just as she knew Edward would be riding past.
The tension showed only in Edward’s knuckles as he threw the pullover to the floor and drew his glance back to hers. He started to unbutton his chemise with slow, sensuous twists of his fingers. “I haven’t told anyone I’m Lord Rochester.”
Celine frowned and wrapped her arms around her traitorous body. “I don’t understand why?”
Edward peeled his shirt from his back and turned to the fire, laying the sodden material over the fireguard. The improbably toned muscles on his back rippled as he bent and stood. The shadows of the flames of the fire licked lovingly against his skin as he turned to face her again.
Celine gripped herself tighter. It was like looking at an athlete from Grecian times, broad shoulders tapering into a narrow waist, ruffled, windswept hair and a face, a face whose normally enquiring expression had transformed it into a visage built for sin.
“Because I’m mad,” he said. And laughed. A long low toe curling laugh. He advanced towards her, with great stalking steps, stopping only when he stood in front of her. “Do you know what used to make me really mad?” He didn’t stop for her to answer. “When I heard all the tales of the men you had been with. The opinions of every man I spoke to who thought about you and what he would like to do to you and your red dresses.”
“I haven’t been with every man.” Celine tried to make the distinction. “None of them matter.”
“Is that how you feel, whenever you kiss someone?” Edward’s fury was palpable. He reached out, grasping her by her waist, pulling her up towards him. His hands shifted, upwards, up her bodice, until his fingers spanned her shoulder blades, his thumbs resting in the vulnerable folds where her breasts met her arms. She let him pull her towards him, crushing her against his chest. She knew what was going to happen next but her traitorous body put up no fight. Slowly he kissed the soft roundness that spilled out of the top of her dress, working his way along the sensitive skin. Her head dropped back of its own accord. He was mad? She was worse.
The heat started low in her body, pushing upwards. As she breathed, more deeply, her head fell to one side, his kisses trailing with abandon up the exposed underside of her ear. She gasped as he sucked wickedly on her earlobe, reaching out with his strong hand to brush away her long heavy hair, pulling his hand back to her body, but this time using his hands to crush her against his chest.
“Celine…” he muttered into the creamy underside of her chin. “Every time I’m with you I don’t feel like Fiske, or Rochester or anyone else.”
“Perhaps,” she gasped, “because you are none of those people—”
“None of those people?” the anger in his voice was palpable. He drew back and stared at her before cursing. “Dammit, Celine.”
Celine’s mouth opened as Edward’s head descended. His firm lips covered hers in a kiss that exploded the heat in her body, igniting the flames to even higher levels.
And then he drew back. “Are you saying that none of them would kiss you like that?”
Celine fell back on the bed, her body limp and burning. “Edward, no—”
He wasn’t listening. He turned and picked up his clothes from before the fire and from the floor. “I tell you again what madness is. Chasing a woman that doesn’t even want you.”
“Edward, I didn’t mean that you are none of those people!” Celine beseeched, holding on to her dress which had slipped precariously.
But still he didn’t stop. Unerringly he made his way to the door. “Wait for my signal,” he said curtly. And then he slammed the door behind him.
Celine stumbled to the fire. The heat in her body had long ago fled, ice coursing through its place into her veins. She wanted Edward all right, all of him, the accountant, the lord, the father figure, the animal tamer, the rescuer.
For now that she had seen more of him, she knew he was all of those things, and none of the whole of any of them. And that was what made her lose control.
CHAPTER 30
Edward stumbled through the dark quiet halls of the castle until he reached Dowager Lady Rochester’s room. He opened the door and in the soft darkness nudged the door shut behind him.
“Mama!” he whispered hoarsely, dropping his clothes to the ground. His chemise was dry, but the pullover had not dried quickly by the fire. He pulled the chemise over his head and froze as a cold object poked into his ribs.
“What are you doing in her ladyship’s bedroom?” The voice was low and deadly.
Edward considered. “I need her advice.”
“In the middle of the night, Lord Colthaven? Just like you did last night?”
Lord Colthaven?
Irritated Edward swung out a leg and knocked over the intruder at the knees. Unerringly he grasped the barrel of the gun in his ribs and twisted it out of the man’s hands as he fell. He cursed as the arms of his pullover flapped against his face, and a low glow filled the room.
“Franklin? Edward!”
Franklin?
The soft shape of his mother in her nightdress appeared by the bedside. She reached over and lit a candle that stood by the bed with the mechanized tinderbox in her hand. The soft glow illuminated more of the room. She picked up the candle and advanced to the end of the bed. Slowly Dowager Lady Rochester put a hand on her hips.
Edward looked down at the floor. His fastidious valet that he normally left behind at the castle lay on the floor in a state of undress groaning. He looked back at the large bed. Two round head shape holes molded into the pillows. He glanced back at his mother whose gaze pinkened and slid away from his.
She smiled sweetly. “Do put your clothes on, dear.”
Edward folded his arms. “Me or him?”
“Edward! Oh do get up, Franklin.”
With a humph Edward started pulling his arms through the sleeves of his pullover. But he couldn’t resist a sidestep to the right and a gentle kick in Franklin’s ribs.
“Ow!”
“Edward!”
He pulled on his last sleeve and folded his arms as Franklin got up. “That was for letting in Colthaven the first time.” He kicked him again on the shins.
“Ow!” Franklin groaned.
His mother grimaced. “Edward, you are behaving like an eight-year-old.”
Edward grunted. “That was for letting me in this time.”
Franklin stood and groaned. “We didn’t want you to find out like this—” He backed away as Edward advanced and threw his arms out.
“Edward!” Dowager Lady Rochester cried.
Edward threw his arms around Franklin, hugged him tightly, and stood back. “That was for looking after my mother. Not just for now, but in the past too.”
“Oh!” Franklin reddened.
Edward shook his head. “You didn’t think that when your brother said that you had a new woman that I wouldn’t put two and two together?”
Franklin blushed. “Alasdair never said—”
Edward shook his head. “Alasdair wouldn’t notice a brick until it was right in front of him unless it was demonstrating a theory about social tribes and their effect on the world. Why did you think I felt comfortable leaving Mama all these years?”
“How long have you known?” His mother’s voice was soft.
Edward drew in a breath. “Since before Papa died.”
Dowager Lady Rochester’s gasp was audible in the quietness of the room. “You started staying away longer and longer. I thought I was losing you. Franklin was…kind.”
“I thought you needed your space. I didn’t want you to think I disapproved. Papa wasn’t really with us anymore. He was living somewhere in the past. Or even as something else.”
“Somewhere where I didn’t exist,” Dowager Lady Rochester said sadly.
Edward thought of the strong woman waiting for him in his room along the corridor. “You needed someone to comfort you.”
She nodded. Franklin crossed the room and put an arm around her shoulders.
Edward watched with a pang in his heart. The companionship between the two was obvious.
Tenderly, Franklin stroked Dowager Lady Rochester’s cheek. “Your mother has been extremely brave. Lord Colthaven has been a menace.”
“What is he doing here?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. He said he wanted to speak to me, but as soon as he arrived, those men turned up and imprisoned us. It has affected him very badly. He’s taken to roaming the castle like a trapped animal. I keep finding him in the most unlikeliest of places.”
“Has he been up to the attic yet?”
“No.”
Edward made a fist with his hand. “Good.”
“Have you been up there yet?” His mother looked up at him with concern.
Edward drew in a breath. “I was going there next.”
“You should,” she said. “You were the one to put her up there.”
“What did you want me to do?” Edward ran his hand through his hair. “Leave her so that everyone could laugh at her? Make us, me, look even more strange than we really are?”
“She needs company,” his mother asserted.
Edward shook his head. “She is too dangerous to be left to fend for herself.”
Franklin coughed. “Beg your pardon, sir, but how are we going to get rid of the soldiers?”
“I’m afraid that I am the one that drew the soldiers here.” Edward sighed. “They work for a gentleman called Mr. Khaffar for whom I have done some business.”
“Mr. Fiske’s business seems to have been going in all sorts of interesting directions.” Dowager Lady Rochester raised an eyebrow. “I thought after closing down your father’s activities with the Great Randolph you would know better.”
Edward raised his chin. “Lord Granwich ordered me to do it. He said to use any means necessary to gain his confidence.”
Dowager Lady Rochester raised an eyebrow. “It doesn’t look like you gained his confidence if his soldiers are outside my house.”
“I don’t know why they are there. I only told him two days ago that I would no longer be his accountant.”
Franklin pursed his lips. “They appeared yesterday.”
“It would have taken them a day and a bit to travel up from London.” Edward rubbed his hands together. “They could be here for some other reason. Has anything happened recently that you know about?”
“It was your birthday three days ago and you weren’t here to celebrate it,” his mother said drily.
Edward waved his hand. Birthdays didn’t seem to matter anymore. “Who wants to know about my birthday?”
“People are beginning to talk about your continued absence.” Dowager Lady Rochester pursed her lips. There is also considerable surprise that you are not yet married.”
Edward drew in a breath. “I have plans for that.”
“Have you now?” His mother sat down on her bed. “We had an interesting visitor today. I put her in your bedroom.”
“I know,” Edward
said shortly. “I climbed in through the window.”
His mother sighed. “I did wonder how you managed to get into the castle. I never could work out how you came and went without me noticing.”
“I knew,” Franklin volunteered quietly.
“You knew? And you never said?” Dowager Lady Rochester gave a humph. “If you knew, why haven’t we escaped yet?”
“Because only a six foot tall, muscular man could escape by that route.” Franklin looked down at his slight frame. “I fear, madam, I’m not sure what you saw in me.”
Dowager Lady Rochester lifted her chin and reached out a hand to Franklin. It seemed that they had almost forgotten that Edward was in the room. “You are made from other stuff, Franklin. Not all of us need to be tall to be brave.”
Edward looked away. It was clear that they both had a story that they hadn’t revealed to Edward. Something that would need to wait for another time.
“I must check on the attic.” He had to divert his mother’s attention before it returned to the sticky subject of Celine. Ye gods.
Dowager Lady Rochester nodded. “I’m not sure what Lady Kathryn thinks about the soldiers outside. She likes to look out of the window. I don’t think they’ve seen her though. I’m not sure if it is important if they do—they don’t really seem to care that we are in here.”
Edward nodded. “Wait for my signal, then go down to the hallway. Hopefully by then I will have drawn the soldiers away from the castle. Go out the kitchen door, across the fields to the farmsteads. Take any horse they have and leave as fast as possible.”
“Where should we go?”
“Rochester Mansions is still empty in Fitzroy Street. I left a skeleton staff there. It’s not safe to go to my home in Islington. Mr. Khaffar has already been there.”
“Won’t they know where we are going if we go to Rochester Mansions though?” His mother paused doubtfully. “It is a little obvious.”
Edward thought. “You’re right. You could go to Robert’s cottage. Celine has already been there. Robert is here in the castle. I will find him and let him know. Otherwise there is one last place you could go…”
Maddening Minx Page 22