Her. Edwin stilled. Along the way, she’d stopped speaking of Egyptian legends and started speaking of herself . . . and her place in this world.
Gertrude must have seen something in his eyes, for she hurriedly set the unlikely pet down and returned to her corner of the sofa. “I cannot keep him out anymore.”
He attempted to follow that abrupt shift.
“Sethos,” she clarified.
And he learned, despite these past years of snarling hate and simmering rage, he was . . . human, after all. For that creature mattered to her. She had a bond with the mouse, because she felt a kindred connection to it for her own circumstances, and he’d not be the one to sever those ties. “I’ll not force you to get rid of him.”
Surprise stamped her features. “You wouldn’t?”
“I won’t.”
Her expression went soft once more, and there was nothing weakening in his concession or his response. There was just a lightness in his chest that he’d not known in so very long.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “I still cannot keep him out, though. He needs a c-cage.” She tripped and stumbled over that word. “I’ve thought his place could be anywhere, and yet it cannot. It is dangerous for him here. I’ve a cat.”
“You have a cat,” he echoed dumbly. She’d been here just a short time, but still, he’d never seen that creature about.
“I actually have seven cats. Only one of whom is here with me.” With every jolting word she spoke, he felt spun around. “And my mouse,” she added after a moment’s pause.
“You have a cat and a mouse living together? Out in the open.”
“Yes. I thought I could teach them to live as companions, but I saw that relationship could never work, and so it is best for Sethos if he’s at least safe.” Gertrude sighed, and drawing her knees against her chest, she dropped her chin atop them. “Sometimes we think we know what is best, but we don’t always.” Again, she spoke in veiled meanings. “You didn’t come ’round after we returned.”
“I was otherwise occupied.” That meeting with his brother-in-law had played out in his mind over and over again, and it had proven safer to retreat and contemplate all Edwin’s own failings and what his reemergence into the world now meant.
“Because of your brother-in-law.”
My God, how much she saw.
Edwin surged to his feet and wandered closer to the hearth; the blaze bathed his face with a loathsome heat that he forced himself to suffer through. He gripped the marble mantel and stared down into those flames. “Because of me.” It was always because of him.
The leather groaned slightly, indicating Gertrude had moved. He felt more than heard her as she drifted over, standing just beyond his shoulder.
“He was my best friend and supported me in my match of his sister, my wife, when his own parents did not. And then rightfully blamed me when she was killed.”
Gertrude made a sound of protest. “The blame was not yours. What happened belonged to the ones who took Stephen, and to Diggory.” Her tones dripped with a seething hatred for that man so loathed by Edwin.
Edwin lifted his gaze slightly and stared at the crystal case clock atop the mantel, using that clear glass as a mirror to study the woman behind him. All along, Edwin had simply cast a net of hatred upon all who shared that bastard’s blood and name. And until recently, never had he considered any of that Devil’s offshoot would carry a like abhorrence for the man. He’d been so absorbed in his own past that he’d not allowed himself to see that mayhap they, too, had been victims, themselves gutted by Mac Diggory. “Blame belonged to me because I married a woman against her parents’ wishes. I thought love could be enough. I thought her parents would come to accept our union. I was arrogant,” he murmured, at last owning that failing. Edwin forced himself to face her. “I didn’t think how Stephen’s return would mean I’d have to confront . . . all of it.” His voice emerged entreating. “I can’t. I’m not ready.” He never would be.
“You’re not speaking just about your brother-in-law,” she quietly observed.
No, he wasn’t. He stood there in silence that Gertrude matched, not pushing him beyond that previous statement. “I’m mad.” It was a phrase he’d uttered more times than he remembered about himself. One ascribed to him by society. And yet something, in speaking it now, to this woman, felt . . . remarkably freeing.
Her piercing gaze went through him, powerful in its ability to probe, and suddenly that ease dissipated and he wanted to call back his earlier pronouncement. “You’re not mad. You’re a man who has suffered greatly. Such grief would shatter any person, Edwin,” she said, so pragmatic he could almost believe that illusion she spun.
“That night destroyed me.” Unbidden, his gaze drifted back to the fireplace, and he lingered his stare on the orange-and-red flames there. “I’ll never be the same man I was.”
Gertrude covered his hand with her own, and his entire body went still. A heat greater than the blaze beside them scorched his palms. “You’re right,” she said solemnly. “You’ll never be the same. Just as I’ll never be the same from my experiences on the streets.” She gave his fingers a light squeeze, as if willing strength into those digits. “What matters is we look forward and learn to live with, and find a semblance of peace with, our own demons.”
He contemplated her words for a moment. “I once railed at what I first took for an insult,” he said, bemusedly. “I lost my wife, my son, and my unborn child, and they’d shame me for my grief.” His facial muscles spasmed. “Eventually, I came to accept society had in fact been . . . correct. I was mad.” The misery over his losses and the memories of that night had rotted his brain until he’d come to not only freely accept but also, oftentimes, embrace his lunacy. “And then . . . it became something more.”
Gertrude stared questioningly back. “A tool,” he said, his voice gravelly. Edwin angled himself so that he was directly facing her. “It became a tool to protect myself.”
She didn’t blink. “From what?” she whispered.
From the world’s disdain. From regret over all he’d lost. Grief had morphed into madness until it had become so interwoven with who he was there could never be any separating himself from it. He shook his head, unable to utter those truths aloud. “I can’t see Charles,” he said, flatly, ending the matter.
Of course, she’d never be content with that nonanswer.
“We’re never ready, Edwin. We just do the best we can. But hiding away will not erase the past or help your future. And your future is with Stephen.”
He closed his eyes. “I don’t know how to be around him. I don’t know how to be around anyone.” Edwin slashed his spare hand through the air.
“And you won’t know how to be around your son as long as you hide away from him.” Gertrude gave his fingers a light squeeze. “Tell me this,” she prodded. “Which felt most right to you today? Which felt best? Eating ices at Gunter’s and playing a child’s game with Stephen? Or hiding in your library and avoiding him for the remainder of the day?”
Edwin stalked over to the sofa and, presenting her with his back, sank into the folds of the chair. “I don’t think I can face the world again.” There it was, the realization he’d grappled with all day.
The floorboards squeaked as Gertrude drifted over. She sat beside him.
Collecting his hand in hers, she gave it another squeeze and drew it close to her chest. His fingers brushed her skin. He felt the steady, reassuring beat of her heart. “You just do it slowly. You do it with Stephen, and you do it for him. It is always about him.”
She spoke as one who knew. Who’d made sacrifices for the boy and done so without question.
The heart he’d thought broken and empty stirred to life, and Edwin curled his hand around Gertrude’s, twining his fingers with hers.
The air crackled between them. Or was that the fire raging in the hearth? It was all twisted, with reason having receded and leaving in its stead the stirring heat of her touch.
“Edwin,” she whispered, slightly breathless. Her chest rose and fell from the force of her rapid inhalations.
His throat moved painfully.
Release her. Release her for so many reasons: because of who she is. Because of what you wish to do. Because of what you will do, if she doesn’t leave in this instant.
Chapter 16
He was going to kiss her.
As a woman who’d grown up on the streets and witnessed cruder acts than a kiss, Gertrude had come to recognize the moment just before a man embraced a woman.
In those instances, that discovery had been retained in a bid for self-preservation: know when, so one could flee. And she had fled before, for the basest beasts in the Dials didn’t give a jot about a blind eye when it came to their animalistic urges.
She’d had two men who’d dared to put their mouths on hers and their tongues in her mouth before she’d nearly bit that loathsome flesh and knocked them to the ground with a knee to their groins. Those had been the only two kisses she’d known, both vile acts from ruthless thugs in Diggory’s gang, who’d gambled . . . and accurately . . . that Diggory wouldn’t give a jot about the blind daughter. From then on, Gertrude had carried nothing more than an apathetic view of those intimate exchanges between men and women.
Until now.
Edwin hooded his gaze, those thick black lashes sweeping down and obscuring his dark-brown eyes, but not before she caught the flash of hunger blazing from within their depths as they lingered on her mouth.
Gertrude’s heart quickened.
For in this moment, with this man, nay, with Edwin, the Marquess of Maddock, she didn’t want to flee. She wanted to know the feel of his mouth on hers. She wanted to know what it was to have him wrap his arms about her.
Someone groaned. Was it her? Or him? Everything was blurred.
And then his mouth was on hers.
Heat. A scorching-hot blaze that burnt on contact. His lips, hard like steel and soft like satin, melded to hers. Gertrude went still under the delicious onslaught of it, and then turned herself over to everything he promised.
Going onto her knees, she twined her arms about his neck, tangling her fingers in his luxuriant silken tresses. Angling himself on the sofa so that they faced one another, Edwin slanted his mouth over hers again and again, and she unashamedly met every bold touch of his lips.
He filled his hands with her buttocks and drew her closer to him so their bodies were flush with no divide between them.
A long moan spilled from her lips, that sound swallowed as Edwin slipped his tongue inside, touching it to hers, and she met it with abandon.
There was nothing sloppy or vile about this exchange. “Edwin,” she groaned into his mouth, his name a plea and a prayer.
He responded by caressing his large hands over her, searchingly. He moved them down the narrow curve of her hips, her thighs, molding the fabric of her nightgown to her heated skin.
Then he reached between them and palmed her right breast.
Desire seared her veins, setting her afire from the inside out as he stroked and teased the puckered tip. “What do you do to me?” he rasped against her mouth between kisses. “You remind me what it is to feel and be alive.”
That raw admission sent a new wave of emotion through her, and lest reality intrude with too many words spoken, Gertrude opened her mouth once more, allowing his tongue entry.
They dueled with their tongues, sparring in an erotic, heady battle that she gladly surrendered to.
She dimly registered him guiding her down; the cool leather crackled and groaned under their added weight as he brought himself to rest atop her. He caught his weight at his elbows; all the while, he never broke contact with her mouth.
He kissed her as though he sought to memorize the feel and taste of her. As if she were the only woman in the world.
And she, Gertrude Killoran, long invisible to all, felt what it was to be wanted and hungered for . . . and so very much alive because of it.
Edwin shifted, and she groaned in protest, fearing he’d break this kiss and shatter this most glorious moment of her existence. But he merely moved his weight onto his left side, freeing his hand so he could continue his previous exploration.
With expert fingers, he slid her wrapper off, shimmying the burdensome fabric off her shoulders. Next, he guided her nightshift down, so that the cool air kissed her skin; that juxtaposition of heat and cold sent desire shooting through her.
He lowered his head, and Gertrude held her breath; she did not move. She did not speak. She made herself absolutely still as he brought his lips to the crest of one modest swell.
Her eyes slid closed, and a shuddery sigh spilled from her as he took that swollen tip deep in his mouth, suckling, teasing.
An ache throbbed between her legs, and Gertrude released a long, throaty moan, wanton to her own ears, and she luxuriated in her womanhood. Embraced it. Thrilled in feeling what it was to be beautiful and wanted and—
“Gert? Where are you?” That child’s voice piped through the doorway and had the same effect as a bucket of Thames water being tossed atop her head, as Diggory had awakened her when she’d been just a babe.
Edwin was on his feet in an instant. He had his garments in order and his cravat straightened, and then he was helping Gertrude to stand before she could make order of her thoughts through the desire cloaking her mind. And then horror came slapping at her senses, robbing her of that all-too-brief interlude of bliss. She looked to the doorway, dimly registering Edwin righting her nightgown and tucking the curls that had escaped her plait back behind her ears.
That sprang her into action. Fingers shaking, Gertrude grabbed up the forgotten wrapper and shrugged into it—just as the door opened.
A pair of shocked, wide eyes stared back. “You are here!” Stephen exploded. “I thought you’d come and try to—” He stopped. The little boy looked between Gertrude and Stephen.
“Stephen,” she said lamely, fiddling with the latch at her waist. She took a step toward him. “What are you—?”
“What’s going on here?” Suspicion better reserved for a man twenty years his senior fell across Stephen’s gaze.
What was she doing here? What was she doing? Gertrude’s mind raced beyond her passionate embrace with Edwin to the reasons that had propelled her here: Stephen, her mouse. Her mouse! She opened her mouth, but Stephen homed his rapidly wary gaze on her face.
She prayed the shadows concealed the guilty blush staining her cheeks.
“You’re flushed.”
Bloody hell. Why was he so blasted observant? In a bid for support, she cast a sideways glance at Edwin and found him abjectly unhelpful.
“I lost Sethos.”
“He’s right there.” Stephen jabbed a dirt-encrusted fingertip at Edwin. “Next to his hand.”
As if on cue, Sethos scrambled onto his back legs and nibbled at the air.
Drat. “Uh . . .”
“We found him,” Edwin intoned in a perfectly cool, composed noble delivery.
“Obviously,” Stephen drawled, folding his arms at his chest. Looking like his father. Sounding so much like his father that Gertrude’s heart turned in her chest. The suspicion in Stephen’s gaze deepened.
Neatly sidestepping her brother’s far-too-observant statement about her flushed cheeks, and in a bid to break the boy’s scrutiny, Gertrude went and retrieved her mouse. “We were having a heated discussion,” she allowed.
Which wasn’t altogether untrue. There had been a discussion. And their exchange had been heated. Just not, however, in the ways she now presented them to Stephen.
Stephen came forward. “You were?”
>
“We were?” Edwin asked at the same moment. His son swung his sharp focus back his way. “That is, we were,” he neatly supplanted.
Gertrude deposited Sethos into her pocket. “Indeed. We were speaking about the woman who’ll be hired as your governess.”
That statement had the expected and hoped-for reaction.
Stephen surged forward. “You found someone?” he demanded, and not allowing Gertrude or Edwin a word edgewise, he launched a steady flow of statements that saw his speech dissolve into an all-too-familiar Cockney. “Oi haven’t seen anyone come here. Ya think to foist me off on just anybody so ya can be done ’ere and return back to the clubs?”
That charge hit like an arrow to the chest. “Do you think so little of me?” she asked, unable to keep the hurt from creeping in, even though it was a vulnerability that would only earn her brother’s derision.
Except . . . Stephen just gave a little shrug. “I wouldn’t blame ya,” he said, moving between proper English and his Cockney. “But neither do I want you just going and leaving me here, either.”
Gertrude stole another glance at Edwin. If his son’s words landed a like mark in him, he gave no outward reaction. And yet . . . there was a tension to his facial muscles, a whiteness at the corners of his lips from one who sought desperately to reveal . . . nothing.
“Your sister is not one who’d simply leave you,” Edwin said at last.
Breathless at that unlikely defense, her mouth fell open, and she sought to mask it.
“She is, however, one who’d be certain that we hire you someone who would be a good match for you as a person and student.”
He knew that of her. After only a brief time together, the first exchanges of which had been laced with hatred and fury, he could speak so solemnly to her character.
The Bluestocking Page 18