“Well, here’s the thing . . .” He paused, wondering where he should begin—if he should begin. After all, wouldn’t she leave once she knew he was in no danger? Of course she would. But he’d used lies once and they’d not worked. He was a pragmatist in all things; this time he would employ the truth. He could hardly do any worse than before, could he?
“Yes? The thing?”
“There never was a concussion.”
“Oh?”
“The damage to my eye is of long standing. I told the doctor that today. It is from an old injury.”
The door opened and a stream of servants paraded into the room.
“I thought we could serve ourselves so we might talk more freely,” Stephen explained as dish after dish was arrayed before them. “Courses are so . . . intrusive.”
This time she lost The Battle of the Smile and allowed her lips their full range of motion. He drank her in as she studied the food, his own lips curving as he watched realization break like dawn on her features.
“You remembered all the dishes I liked,” she said once the servants had deposited their burdens and gone. Her tone was one of wonderment.
“Of course I did.”
She shook her head. “Why?”
“Because it is what I do when things are important to me: remember them.”
“But after all these weeks—months?” She made a small sound of disbelief, her gray eyes wide.
“I love you, Elinor.”
A flush crept up her neck, flooding her pale cheeks with color.
He reached for her with his uninjured hand on impulse and then stopped. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cause you distress. May I serve you?”
“Please.” Her skin was bright pink but she’d schooled her features and he could not read her. So instead he fed her.
They ate, making only general conversation about food, until she asked him the question he’d been expecting.
“Did the damage to your eye happen the night Trentham attacked you?”
Stephen laid down his fork and knife. “It began that night.”
She closed her eyes.
This time when his hand moved, he did not pull back. Instead he took her chapped, delicately boned fingers in his and had to steady himself against a wave of emotion that left him weak with relief and a sense of—homecoming.
God. How he missed touching her—any part of her, every part.
“Elinor.” He waited until she opened her eyes, dizzy with gratitude that she hadn’t pulled away from him. “You are hearing it just now, but for me it happened a long time ago. I have learned to live with it.” He’d also learned that the loss of vision in one eye was nothing to the loss of her, but he didn’t think she would find the argument persuasive just now.
“You cannot see at all from that eye?”
“No.”
Her face crumpled. “Oh, Stephen. No wonder you hated me. No wonder you wanted revenge.”
He squeezed her hand hard enough to hurt.
“Don’t think that for even a second. That is the excuse I used for years. Life leaves its scars on us all, Elinor.” He paused, wanting her to know he’d learned things about her past, but also wanting her to know it was hers to share, or not. He released her hand, but she didn’t pull it from under his. “Can I tell you a story?”
She nodded, her mouth quivering as she struggled to gain control of her emotions.
“My mother was pregnant with me before she married the man who became my father in everything but blood. Our village was small and everyone knew I was The MacLeod’s bastard—including me. It ate at me to see my real father and my real half-brothers—boys who had everything I didn’t thanks to what side of the blanket their mother had shared with our father.” He slanted her a bitter smile. “Instead of being grateful for what I had—parents who loved and cared for me—I could think of nothing but revenging myself against the man who’d tossed me aside.
“My adoptive father died when I was twelve and things became harder. Even so, The MacLeod allowed us to keep our small farm.” He shrugged. “Joe Vale was dead and so was The MacLeod’s wife. I supposed I expected—hoped—my father would finally marry my mother now that he was free. When he didn’t—when he took a young girl to wife, instead—I stole from him.
“He could have seen me hanged, but instead he banished me and my mother from the only home I’d ever known. Not long afterward, she took ill and died in a hovel in Edinburgh—courtesy of me, her thieving son.”
Elinor opened her mouth, no doubt to protest, but Stephen raised a hand.
“The story isn’t finished. Before she died, my mother sent a letter to my uncle in London. He was a good man with no wife and children of his own and he graciously took in his fifteen-year-old nephew. He taught me what he could about his trade—he was a stable master—and supported my wish to go into service.” He smiled at her. “Once again things did not work out the way I’d hoped. But the thing I never realized until a few months ago—when I ended up in that cell in Newgate, alone, and without any hope of ever being with you—was that it was my destiny to be on that particular ship to America. Because of me, Jeremiah Siddons lived another fifteen years. Because of what happened between me and you, I was able to save one of the kindest and most generous people I’ve ever known. What I’m trying to say, in a very long-winded fashion, is that my life has really been very charmed. I am only devastated that it took hurting you for me to realize it.”
∞∞∞
Elinor felt like an animal that had been caught in a trap. But instead of sharp jaws that snapped closed, this trap was slow and silken and she wandered deeper and deeper into its clutches with each moment that passed.
They’d finished dinner and Stephen had given her a tour of the house before they’d ended up in the library. The entire time it had been on the tip of her tongue to ask him to send her home in one of his carriages. But the words never came.
Get out now, an insistent voice in her head advised.
Elinor ignored it and instead perused the shelves full of books. There were many gaps but also many new-looking bindings.
“Was there much here when you bought it? Or are these yours?” She took a volume of Chaucer from the shelf.
“Most of these are mine.”
His voice came from right beside her and she jumped. He didn’t notice and was looking at a shelf too high for her to see. He plucked down a large, aged-looking book and turned to her. “I think you might find this interesting.”
The library was well-lighted and they were close enough that she could see his eyes clearly. One pupil was slightly larger than the other. How was it that she’d never noticed the size difference before?
“They’re not always that way,” he said, smiling. “And I have no idea what causes the sightless one to dilate or not. I believe most of the time they are quite similar.”
Elinor flushed. “I’m glad to hear that or I would have thought myself abysmally unobservant.” She looked down at the book in his hand. It was De Re Anatomica Libri XV, by Realdo Colombo. She looked up.
He was intent, his nostrils slightly flared. For some odd reason the knowledge that his beautiful green eyes were damaged squeezed her heart until she felt weak. On the surface he looked perfect; yet he was flawed all the same.
She took the book from his left hand and carried it to his desk before opening it.
“It’s phenomenal,” she said, turning fragile pages that were almost two hundred years old.
He came behind her, the heat of his body like the touch of his hand as he leaned over her shoulder and pointed to one of the illustration plates. “Have you ever encountered one of these in your work?”
It was a fat, capering cherub, which the author had prudently inserted into a description of internal organs and dissection, no doubt to pacify the Catholic establishment of the time.
Elinor laughed. “Beth has already squabbled about making room for a pig and a kitten; if I took in a naked, winged man that might be the fina
l straw.”
He chuckled and the low sound teased her body like the feather-light caress of fingers across the strings of an instrument.
She needed to leave. Now.
“This is lovely. Thank you for sharing it with me.” She closed the cover.
“I bought it for you, Elinor.” The words were hot against her temple, and her body—without any instruction from her brain—turned with agonizing slowness, like a weathervane in a steady, unrelenting wind.
His mouth descended on hers with swift brutality and she met him with a force that equaled his own. Teeth clicked and tongues tangled; it was carnage.
She couldn’t get close enough. She wanted to be inside him.
Elinor didn’t recall grabbing his shoulders but she was already halfway up his body when she must have jarred his arm.
He yelped and jerked away.
“I’m sorry, Stephen.”
He muttered something unspeakably vulgar and then used his left arm to sweep the desk clear of books and papers.
Foolscap and parchment fluttered through the air like a startled flock of birds. Elinor flung out a hand to grab the ancient book before it joined the rest but her fingers scrabbled uselessly on the embossed leather cover.
Stephen leaned across her, plucked the book off the desk, and tossed it onto a nearby chair, ignoring her gasp of protest.
“Get on the desk.” His voice was a hoarse growl. He drove her back with his body, not stopping until she felt hard, unforgiving wood against her bottom.
She hastily scrambled up onto the clear surface.
He gave a low grunt of approval. “Lift your skirts, Ellie.”
Her entire body became hot and it was a wonder she didn’t glow through her clothing.
“Please, I want to see you.”
See her? Her bodice clung to her damp, heated torso like hot, clammy hands. Her fingers plucked at her skirts but her brain clutched at one last straw.
“The lights, they’re—”
“Please.”
The simple word was like a scythe through wheat and any vestige of resistance fell before his hungry intensity.
She lifted the hem to her thighs and he looked down at her, his eyes flickering across the scars that crisscrossed her upper thighs. Elinor held her breath, but he made no comment. Instead he pushed the gossamer skirts higher with his good hand. His fingers flicked lightly over the tops of her stockings and he pressed his body closer, spreading her knees with his thighs, his hand moving toward the part of her that ached for him.
He slid a finger inside her body and his eyelids fluttered shut. “Oh, God.”
Her hips lifted off the desk to take more of him, giving up the fight to maintain or regain any kind of control.
She thrust against his hand and they both groaned.
“Ellie.” His hand stilled.
She opened her eyes at his desperate whisper.
“I want to be inside you.”
She nodded, too shaken too speak.
He lifted his right hand and frowned at the splint. “You’ll need to unbutton me, sweetheart. I’m afraid it’s either you or Nichols.”
Elinor sent a button flying before getting the others open. She clawed at his tight pantaloons and yanked them down.
Her eyes riveted to the hard evidence of his arousal. She’d felt him in her hand and had taken him inside her body—but she’d never seen him. She slid her fingers around him and he hissed.
His head fell back and she looked up the long, bronzed column of his throat to the surprisingly white, vulnerable skin beneath his jaw. His hips pushed gently against her hand and his body shuddered. It was perhaps the most powerful moment of her life. He’d placed himself in her hands and closed his eyes, entrusting himself to her entirely.
Elinor spread her thighs and guided him closer. He bent his knees and gasped when he felt the entrance to her body.
“Oh, Ellie.” He slid his good arm around her and entered her in a hard thrust. “Hold on to me,” he rasped.
She wrapped her legs around him and he began to move.
Their eyes locked and his arm tightened like a strap as he held her steady and drove them both higher.
It didn’t take long for either of them to reach the blissful plateau. For her part, Elinor had been humming and pulsing for him from the moment she’d learned he survived the accident—the moment she realized what it would feel like to lose him for good.
∞∞∞
Elinor lay in the crook of his arm, his heart beating a steady, solid tattoo below her cheek. She could feel the tension in his body and knew what he was going to say even before he spoke.
“Elinor.”
“Yes, Stephen.”
“Tell me about the scars.”
She sighed. “There’s not much to tell that you don’t already know from personal experience. Edward was a violent, cruel man who needed a victim. That was you once, Marcus on occasion, and me for almost ten years. He left his marks and some of them were more painful and lasting than others. But it wasn’t a living hell all the time. I was able to do things for our tenants nobody else could do. I had Beth to love me and later I had Marcus to love.” She smiled. “You might not think it, but he was a delightful child and gave me a reason to live during some of the darkest times.”
“You never wanted children of your own?” His voice was as taut as a newly strung violin but he stroked her shoulder with calm, soothing strokes.
“I was pregnant several times.”
He stopped stroking and squeezed her until it hurt. She wanted nothing more than to go to sleep in his arms tonight, to wake up in them tomorrow, and to do so every day for the rest of her life. But the story she’d just told him only reminded her of why she could never place herself in any man’s care ever again.
“I love you.”
She smiled—why couldn’t she enjoy hearing those words from the man she loved?
He inhaled deeply. “I beg of you—please, will you marry me? Not only for the sake of our child, but because I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
Tears leaked from the corner of her eyes and one gleamed on the smooth fabric of his black coat before disappearing.
“No, Stephen, I will not.”
His hand resumed its gentle stroking. “You know I will not give up on you, Elinor. I love you too much. I will ask you again. And again.”
Elinor closed her eyes but the tears just fell faster. “Stephen.” She said his name first, hoping it would ease the harshness of the words she was about to speak. “Tonight must be the last time this happens. If you really love me, I want you to promise to go away—to leave Redruth. I’ve carved out a life of sorts for myself here and I cannot stay unless you leave. If you will not go, I have to go.”
His chest still rose and fell in even, deep swells like a calm sea, but every muscle in his body was as hard and brittle as glass.
“You want me to leave Oakland—for good?”
She said the words before she couldn’t. “Yes, I want you to leave Oakland. For good.”
His arm tightened slightly and then slid away. Her hair had come loose during their exertions and he brushed it back from her face and leaned over her, his expression one of near agony that made her heart catch.
He kissed her temple. “Then I will leave Oakland. For good.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Redruth, Cornwall
1817
Beth slammed the door to Elinor’s small study with enough force to make her jump.
It had been this way for days, ever since Elinor came home from Oakland. Her maid’s face had been a study in disappointment, dismay, and anxiety. Whatever the other woman’s hopes had been, Elinor’s return had dashed them.
Since that night they’d lived together like two prisoners sharing a small cell. Elinor’s only escape from the aggrieved haze that hung over the house was to escape to her surgery. Unfortunately, young Jory Williams was currently hammering on the roof of that edifice, t
hanks to the appearance of an extended family of starlings. Luckily there were no fledglings and she’d instructed Jory to patch the hole and look for any others.
Until he was finished, she was trapped in the cottage. With Beth. The worst part about Beth’s war of silence was that she’d heard nothing about Stephen in five days.
She looked down at the ledger she’d been working on and bit her lip. A large black blot of ink in the middle of her medical expenses column was a testament of her inability to concentrate. She’d been working on the same column for at least an hour. Or not working on it, depending on how you looked at the manner.
When she wasn’t wondering about Stephen’s whereabouts, she was recalling their last night together. Every time she remembered he was blind in one eye because of her actions she felt as though she’d been kicked in the stomach. That knowledge had opened the door to her imaginings. What must his life have been like? What hardships had he known that she couldn’t even imagine?
It was true that marriage to Edward had possessed its share of horrors, not the least of which was physical and emotional violence, but she’d never gone hungry or wondered if she would die somewhere half-way around the globe, alone. Stephen had been only fifteen.
The gut-wrenching guilt she’d experienced for years after that night had faded. In its place was a sad understanding of how easy it was to hurt and be hurt and of the dangers inherent in baring yourself to another person.
What Stephen had done to her in London had hurt her deeply.
Oh, she knew he was composed of more than anger and vengeance. His behavior at the mine had proven what she’d known deep down—that he could put others above himself.
But one impulsive act of selflessness could not cancel fifteen years of plotting and revenge. The frightening truth was that he was accustomed to having his own way and stopping at nothing to get it. If she were to place herself in his care, she could never be sure that—
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Elinor’s heart shot into her mouth.
The door swung open and slammed against the wall. Beth stood in the opening, her fisted hands on her hips.
The Footman (The Masqueraders Book 1) Page 32