by Liz Tyner
‘You have won over both my parents.’ She paused.
‘They are immaterial to me.’
‘And I beg your pardon for not seeming grateful for your efforts on my behalf.’ She shrugged. ‘My parents trust me with you, because you brought me home. I assure you they do not normally leave me unattended.’ She turned her face away. ‘And your medical condition seems to reassure them, particularly since my sisters have...’
‘I don’t have a medical condition.’
‘Mother explained it to me very carefully. It is nothing to be ashamed of. It happens.’
‘I don’t have a medical condition.’ A tiny lift of his shoulders.
‘Very well...’ she turned ‘...you don’t have a medical condition. Call it whatever you wish.’
‘The physician was having a jest at my expense.’
She could read nothing in his expression. ‘Well, it doesn’t matter to me, either way.’
‘It matters a tremendous amount to me.’ His chin tilted down but his eyes remained on her.
‘Are you here because my father asked you?’
He laughed, a low rumble that reached inside her. ‘No. I don’t care what your father thinks.’
‘Yet, you’re here.’
‘I saw your hand, and heard your voice, and walked away. And yet I keep coming back. And I curse myself for it. But it will not continue.’
‘So flattering to me.’
‘I don’t know why I tell you the truth. Perhaps that’s why I keep coming back. I can speak what I think with you and it’s not the same.’
He saw the moment she took it as a compliment and yet he knew it wasn’t in the way she took it. Without a doubt he could have finessed his way so deep into her father’s good graces and then spoken pretty words to her and she would have been in his arms easily. And he could have walked away. But he didn’t like crumpling things just because he could break them. He saw no reason to expend the energy. No satisfaction in it.
‘The stronger prey on the weaker. If you look at the animals in the forest, it’s just the way of it. You can’t change it. And your innocence to me is more fascinating than the softness of your skin, or the look of your face. I’ve never seen it before. Never, in such a way as you have it.’
‘You hardly know me.’
‘I know your purity. It’s rare. At least to me.’
She didn’t think anyone had ever examined her face so carefully, yet he didn’t really seem to be looking at her.
‘Why do you consider me so innocent?’
‘Because if you knew what risks you took, you wouldn’t have left with the woman. To go out alone into the night with someone you hardly know.’
‘I don’t say she’s golden. But she is someone who has been around most of my life. My sisters told me stories of her before they left. She helped Honour leave.’
‘It isn’t worth the risk to be wrong. You could lose everything. Your life. Or your spirit. You trust too easily.’
She watched his face. ‘So can I trust you?’
‘With your life.’
His heart pounded. He told the truth. He would go to the ends of the earth to find Annie if someone threatened her life.
‘Sweet, don’t look so amazed. You can trust me with your life, but there are so many other things that you have I’m not so sure you should trust me with. Things which may be as important as life.’
She didn’t move.
Her face looked up at him. The sun-mixed shadows giving her a radiance that made him believe, for half a second, in angels.
And how could you not kiss an angel? But to kiss an angel was surely a sin.
She pulled him along with her innocence and he followed willingly. Her artlessness surrounded them and he could feel it. That trusting belief in him.
She stepped forward, her skirts kicking up and touching his trousers, connecting them.
‘I mustn’t let you think that I can court you,’ he said. ‘It’s not possible.’
‘I don’t care about your affliction.’ The gentleness in her gaze almost taking him out at the knees. ‘I really don’t.’
He took in a breath. ‘I can’t court you. I can take you out of your prison today, but you must find a different gaoler and a different path. I have my work. My father. The things that have kept my attention my whole life. You have been a bit of a respite, but we live in two different worlds.’
‘Only because I haven’t been allowed out in society. I’ve always been a wallflower, even in my own home. But, I’m willing to learn to be a part of your world. I would like to. I have already told my parents that I want to go to soirées.’
Soirées. This was not about a simple dance or two. No, she would never wish to be a part of his world. It would destroy her and the only thing that could destroy him would be to see such a thing happen to her.
But she would never understand the evil that he’d seen and felt. The evil that had deadened his heart and tried always to get the upper hand.
‘If you were in my world, then perhaps you would change so much that neither of us would recognise each other.’ He tried to put softness into his words. He couldn’t tell her what his mother’s face had looked like within minutes of her death. How he’d remembered that, but not the way she smiled, or how she looked on any other day. And how she’d called out to him in her last moments and he’d not answered.
‘An innocent tossed into a maelstrom might not withstand the winds as someone who’d done nothing else but live in a storm their whole life,’ he said.
She turned, dipping her head. ‘What if I could withstand them?’
‘But if you couldn’t...’
He reached out, twirling her, and then stopping her at an arm’s length away.
She clutched at his waistcoat. He took the fingers and pulled them to his face, shutting his eyes and holding her hand to trail her touch along his face. ‘I find you more appealing than anything or anyone I’ve ever seen. You are the only poison I’ve ever wanted.’
She shook her head. ‘I can’t be poison and an innocent at the same time.’
‘Said the innocent one.’
Chapter Fourteen
He studied her face, committing it to memory and knowing he was foolish to do so. He didn’t need to torment himself with something he couldn’t have. But he wanted one pleasant face in his memory.
‘Why do you notice me? Why did you come after me?’ she asked.
‘You’re the innocence I never had. I never believed in. And I see it in your every movement.’
She swayed closer to him.
‘No.’ The softness in his voice stopped her, and the finality in the word.
‘After Mother died, I decided I was old enough not to have a governess. I took my grandmother’s favourite necklace, the one she wore every day, and hid it in Tizzy’s winter coat.’
His grandmother was never one to let things slide away peacefully and brought in the stable hands to search the house.
He’d been quietly playing with his toy soldiers when his grandmother had stormed into the room after Tizzy. The eruption had been quite flaming. He’d thought he was sending Tizzy to the gallows.
He’d seen the moment Tizzy figured out who’d framed her. ‘Get out,’ he’d shouted, shaking a fist. ‘Get out, you thief.’
His grandmother had been startled and, after a second’s thought, Tizzy had made her escape.
That was the moment he’d learned to play. His grandmother’s face had puckered and she’d studied his face. She had suspected him as well and then she’d grinned.
He stepped back, keeping his focus locked on Annie.
‘I am my father’s son.’
‘Did you ever think you might have your mother’s blood in your veins as well?’
‘Perhaps. But I fear it has been diluted.’
He tilted his head down because he didn’t want her to see his eyes, then he stepped through the door to the house, waiting for the sounds of Annie following him.
The only thing that touched him was the smile in Annie’s eyes and he could feel the sunlight from her even when he turned away.
He breathed in and out, his thoughts lost to the world and to himself.
He waited in the hallway until the maid caught up and he gave the servant a glare that sent her scurrying and almost colliding with the butler. Another look of distaste was all it took for Barrett to have Annie alone.
A beat. ‘Can I show you what felled your sisters? What fells even the strongest men and has caused more heartache than all the battlefields in history?’
She watched him as he moved closer, taking up all the space in her world.
He cradled the tip of her chin. The feather-light touch trapped her, sending an awareness of her own skin and her beating heart deep into her.
He leaned forward, leaving the softest kiss on her mouth.
And then he deepened it, lingering, tasting, exploring the contours of her lips, filling her with so many sensations she could not sort them. Her thoughts faded as she tasted the slight saltiness of him, the hint of lemon and a tartness she couldn’t place.
He leaned forward, moving closer, his hands at her waist now, keeping her upright. The kiss enveloped her and he pulled her body against his, his hardness pressing against her, and one hand clasped her neck, securing her without pressure, just the heat of his touch.
When the kiss stopped, the sensations didn’t and she remained motionless, but his mouth trailed down to follow the path across her skin set by his fingers, moving the shoulder of her clothing aside, lingering where the barest skin covered the ridges just below her neck.
He stopped and clasped her shoulders, and his lips traced just above the bodice of her dress, leisurely taking his time with the juncture where skin met cloth.
He moved back, but one finger traced the trail of his lips, burning fresh into her skin. ‘Desire feels like love, looks like love from the inside and even tastes like love. Applied often enough, it can temporarily erase the senses to make a case it is love, but it isn’t. Ever. Love is the fancy word it hides behind. Rather like a sturdy tree, in which a large, dark cat is hiding, waiting to pounce and devour the prey beneath, sometimes only leaving dry bones behind. The tree is there, but it only provided a perch for the predator while the prey moved closer. Love is the biggest lie of life.’
His eyes, darker than she’d ever seen them, stared.
He stepped back, bowing. ‘Thank you for these moments. And remember you can get them easily from any male you find halfway palatable.’
‘No, I can’t,’ she said.
He stilled. He had to change the look in her eyes. He had to turn it to hate.
‘I made the men who sold their goods to your father sell to me instead. He could only buy at higher prices. It caused your father to lose so much that he could not maintain his profits. I then moved in and bought his shops for less than what they were worth.’ He paused. ‘That is who I am, Annie. That is what I do.’
Then he gave her a dismissing glance and touched the door to leave. ‘I took your father’s business, gutted it and then bought it for almost nothing and am rebuilding it in the way I wish. It was another day’s business to me. And I’ve lost not a moment’s sleep and I feel absolutely no remorse at all. None.’
The shock in her eyes gouged him in such a way he could feel it on all sides. He blinked away the look of hurt on her face, cursing himself for putting the vision in his memory.
Then, as he had learned when he was a child, he closed his mind to any feelings of pain.
He turned back, making sure not to look at her face. He looked at a mirror on the wall and hated what he saw. ‘It was all folly on my part. You were a folly. A diversion. No different than any other woman who has been in my life, except you’re an innocent. A waste of my time.’
Then he walked out the doorway and shut the door with a click that echoed in his head.
He stepped away, closing his feelings down and pushing them further into the recesses than he ever had before. He’d secured Annie behind him. She was a moment of his past. Not even a memory to think about.
He strode out of the house and barred her from his mind.
He’d ensured she would want nothing more to do with him and he’d erase her from his memories. She had been a folly. A frolic. A moment of madness on his part to trifle with someone so naive.
She’d been a distraction. A lapse. A trivial matter.
He was a good distance from her house when he realised he’d left his horse behind.
* * *
Annie ran to her room in the attic. She wanted her heart to stop beating. She wanted to scream. She couldn’t face her parents in this agony so private that she could not share.
She ran to the window and put her forehead against the glass, shutting her eyes and trying to shut her heart away from the loss and humiliation that Barrett had given her. She had been senseless. Utterly senseless.
Barrett had no heart. He was cruel. He could just as easily not have said such hateful things.
She opened her eyes. A movement below the window caught her attention. The garden looked as peaceful as it always had and a man stood untying his horse. Not any man. Barrett.
Using both hands, she thrust up the window with all her force. She leaned out, gripping the sill. ‘You’re hateful. Horrible. I want nothing to do with you ever again.’
She slammed down the window, the crash jarring her body. She moved out of sight and slid to the floor.
She put both hands over her face. The horrible man. Horrible.
That horrible man who tasted so good when he kissed her.
Touching her lips, she ran her fingers over them. Desire. He knew what he spoke of.
But then she understood. She’d thought him aroused earlier, but surely she’d been mistaken. He’d even told her the physician jested about the affliction. Barrett had tried to convince her Gavin lied so she could never reveal the secret.
He’d said all those things to protect her. He’d known he could never be a true husband, or give her children, or fulfil any moments of desire other than the kind he had shown her with a kiss. He’d told her to find someone halfway palatable and marry him. He’d wanted her to find happiness and was willing to sacrifice himself to do so.
He could have easily not said the words. He could have led her along the same path her sisters’ beloveds had led them, only to introduce them to the truth when it was too late to step back. Barrett had warned her for her own good. She realised that.
Her father’s business had been in trouble long before Barrett arrived. Her mother’s father had left a sizeable inheritance to his only living child. It kept them when there were no profits. She’d heard her parents talk of it many times.
And Barrett had seen the scene with her mother and father and known how upset she’d made them. He’d thought her the same as her sisters.
She pushed herself to her feet and ran to the window. Barrett had left.
Her stomach plummeted.
And she’d shouted out hateful things out the window. He would never, ever forget that.
She put her hands over her face. She understood completely that he could not forgive that. He’d been so mistreated in his life and she’d behaved no different to him than his father or his grandmother.
She’d been a shrew who’d shouted out the window. A disgrace. An embarrassment. The one woman in his life who had treated him kindly—his mother—had died early.
Annie knew she’d been much more like his grandmother.
She might have been an innocent, hardly equal to the demands of society, but she’d shouted out the window like the lower classes. She would learn. She wo
uld learn how to be more like Madeline Trotter.
Moving to her nightstand, she picked up a bottle of perfume Honour had left behind. Lavender. Then she touched her other sister’s perfume bottle. Lilac.
Then she picked up her own, something she’d had her mother request for her, and it had taken months to arrive. A French blend of jasmine that she’d never worn and was now not her preference. She held the liquid up, between herself and the window, watching the light refract. She wanted rosewater.
Chapter Fifteen
Annie walked into the main sitting room. Her mother had her foot propped on a silk pillow. Her father sat at her side, reading to her. He’d never been one to concentrate on his properties much, often abandoning any ideas soon after he’d talked himself into them. When they didn’t seem fresh any more, he lost interest.
‘I wanted to court Mr Barrett, but he has left and said he has no fascination with me.’
Her mother gasped. ‘He can’t not have interest in you.’ She sat straighter. ‘He asked you out on a walk today. What did you talk about that upset him?’
Her father’s lips moved into a line and his eyes narrowed in speculation, but not in surprise. ‘I was certain he wanted to court you. I mean, the man moved into the household for almost a week. We don’t live far apart and I’m not that interesting. It had to be you.’
‘He doesn’t want to court me. That was to tell me goodbye.’
Her mother opened her mouth and put a hand to her chest as if she meant to deny the words, but didn’t speak immediately. ‘Has he ever courted anyone?’ she asked her husband.
His eyes were half-closed in concentration. ‘He once seemed to be courting that conniving witch of a woman, Madeline Trotter, who would sell—’ he looked at his wife ‘—would sell about anything to anyone for a good price. Now that woman should be in trade.’
‘She is,’ her mother said, blinking twice. ‘Which goes to show that Barrett is not that wise where women are concerned.’
‘He told me he wouldn’t come back,’ Annie insisted.