The Sins of Lord Lockwood

by Meredith Duran

  He thrust deeply, seating himself inside her, and a sigh slipped from her. Now his lips moved softly, tenderly, on that secret spot beneath her ear. “Easy,” he whispered, then took up a rhythm, shallow and then deeper, slower and then faster, tormenting her patiently, his discipline infuriating, tormenting, delicious. For long moments—minutes—he teased and bullied her this way, as she began to choke on the urge to beg, sobbing gasps that she would not turn into words, until at last she wrapped her legs around him and said, “Please.”

  He thrust into her deeply and hard, again and again, and she tightened all over, reaching—reaching—

  There. Coiled tension burst. Gripping him, her face turned into his soft hair, she shuddered around him, and swallowed her own cries.

  The carriage drew to a halt.

  From outside came the noises of industry, a crowd: jingling tack, a cabman’s shout, the clop of hooves, a burst of distant laughter, the muted chaos of a dozen conversations. The coach rocked slightly as a footman dismounted from his perch.

  His cheek against hers felt damp and hot. His breath shuddered across her ear. Then, gradually, he detached from her.

  Small movements, slow, as though he feared himself breakable. She watched through the darkness, made lighter by the blaze spilling from the building outside, as he closed his trousers. Righted his waistcoat and jacket. And then, with strong capable hands, ringless and tanned, he took hold of her ankles, one by one. He carried them back to the floor, and fitted her feet into her slippers. She was watching his face, but he did not lift it as he eased back to study her clothing. He would not meet her eyes.

  His survey appeared to satisfy him. He took her by the waist and lifted her without warning, knocking down her skirts, smoothing them before resettling her on the bench.

  The door shook. It was locked.

  “My lord?” came the footman’s voice from the curb.

  Lockwood sat back down on the bench opposite. His expression was half concealed by shadow, his jaw locked tight.

  “I have never wanted to shame you,” he said very quietly. “Nor have I ever found you repugnant.”

  A delicate hope unfurled through her. “Then . . . if I say no more blindfolds, you—”

  “I will respect your choice, as I have done since Lawdon. But, no, Anna—barring this exception, the terms have not changed.”

  Her hands curled into fists. “How much it must mean to you, to have the upper hand.”

  “I can’t deny it,” he said flatly.

  She turned the lock, allowing the door to be opened.

  He descended first, and when he pivoted back to help her down, she shrugged off his hand and reached instead for the footman’s.

  On the steps up to the concert hall, however, he took her arm without asking, and she would not make a scene. So she tried to ignore how every pore of her skin felt magnetized to his, so close by. How her knees still trembled from what he had done to her. How tears threatened, though she could not say why.

  He took care to match his stride to hers. It seemed a mockery of her somehow. Or maybe he was performing chivalry for the sake of onlookers. She did not miss how every woman turned to note his arrival when they stepped inside the hall.

  She could smell his skin. Her own seemed imprinted by the scent.

  She forced herself to focus on the fine points of the lobby. Most of it was very elegant, made of paneled pale walls outlined in gilt, lit by extravagant chandeliers. One corner had been blocked off by scaffolding, which was draped in a large canvas sheet. A group of idiots were poking the sheet with their canes, raising a great cloud of dust that caused Anna to sneeze.

  “My lord,” called a petite blonde from across the room, her voice full of laughter. “Is it not rather late for an entrance? The third act has begun.”

  “That is Lady Chad,” Lockwood told Anna, then called back, his golden voice flexing with charm, “Fashionably late or nothing.”

  Nobody, listening to or looking at him, would guess he’d just ravished his wife. Clearly it had not moved him.

  “Nothing would be preferable,” Anna muttered.

  “Do try not to be too Scottish, Anna.”

  She sneezed again. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Miss Martin,” he said as the ladies approached. “Countess, allow me to introduce my sist—”

  “His wife,” Anna said, sticking out her hand. Sister! Now it was clear that he wasn’t unmoved: on the contrary, he was trying to provoke her. “Anna Wint—Devaliant, I suppose.”

  The other two women exchanged a marveling look. Then the brunette, Miss Martin, shook Anna’s hand. “I am very glad to meet you, Countess.”

  So here was the artist whom Lockwood would never gag. What a fortunate woman! Anna beamed at her.

  Lockwood made a noise of disgust. “Good God, are you still using that trick?”

  She did not bother to look at him. “It’s no trick, it’s my bloody smile.”

  Lady Chad looked flustered by this curse, but Miss Martin’s serene expression did not alter a whit. She had a gentle watercolor prettiness about her, only the vividness of her blue eyes hinting at the passion required to paint such nightmares. Those eyes studied Anna with a cool, unsparing thoroughness.

  But the acuity of a woman’s gaze would pose no trouble to Lockwood. He would simply keep it covered with a blindfold. “You’ll be the artist, then?” she asked. “The one who he’s promoting?”

  Lockwood’s grip tightened on her arm. “Keep your voice down,” he said. “That’s meant to be a secret.”

  “Oh, was she unaware she painted?” Anna gave Miss Martin’s hand an exaggerated pat. “Do you also suffer from amnesia, then? Forgetting who you are, where you go. My husband knows all about that; perhaps he can suggest a remedy, as he seems to be able to dispel it at will.”

  “That’s quite enough,” Lockwood bit out, and pulled her away from the women.

  From behind them came Lady Chad’s voice. “Do come visit, Lady Lockwood!”

  “Can’t, I’m off to Paris tomorrow!” Anna called.

  “The hell you are,” Lockwood snarled.

  “Whyever not? You set the terms, and I have refused them. What cause do I have to stay now?”

  Over by the scaffolding, the group of rowdies crowed and hooted. Lockwood visibly startled at the noise, then tossed a furious look over his shoulder at them. The idiots were tugging on the canvas sheeting, buffeting the scaffold and causing it to rock. “You may go where you damned well please,” he told her tersely. “I have said from the start that you would do better elsewhere.”

  He was right. She stopped in her tracks. Her company was a privilege he did not deserve. “Then go ahead without me. I will return home; I am no longer in the mood for music.”

  “I dismissed the coachman until ten o’clock.”

  She shrugged. “I saw a cabstand at the corner.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You will not travel by cab in this city.”

  “Ah, is that husbandly concern, again? Charming.” She started past him, and he caught her elbow.

  “This is not Edinburgh. Women are gutted here as easily as men.”

  “Men, too? How fortunate, then, that you had my escort this evening.” She pulled her dagger from her pocket by way of explanation. When he recoiled, she pushed out a mocking laugh. “You’ve forgotten—I can look after myself. And I never go unarmed, particularly around men who want to tie me up.”

  A great cheer rent the air—followed a second later by a splintering crash. The rowdies had pulled down the canvas, and the wooden frame along with it.

  “Good lord.” Anna coughed, waving away the dust. “And to think England considers Scotland uncivilized.”

  Lockwood did not reply. He was staring fixedly at the rowdies, his expression strange—rigid and pale.

  “Don’t pay them mind,” she said.

  He turned back to her, but his remark was lost as two guards came running into the lobby. The rowdies scattered, hooting a
s they swarmed through concertgoers in a race toward the exit. One of them, flying by, slipped on the fallen canvas and smashed directly into Lockwood—who seized the boy and threw him against the wall, pinning him there by the throat.

  Anna’s wits took a moment to catch up to the sight. The boy made a piteous wheezing sound and groped at Lockwood’s hand.

  Lockwood did not release him.

  “All right, let him go.” Lockwood showed no sign of hearing her. She grabbed his wrist. “I said, let him go!”

  His forearm was hard as iron, his grip unbreakable. The boy was flushing a mottled red now, his mouth opening and closing in a desperate bid for air.

  “You are hurting him!” She dug her nails into his flesh. “Liam!”

  He recoiled all at once. The boy dropped straight to the floor, then crawled away, casting a horrified glance over his shoulder before managing to scramble to his feet and make a dash for it.

  “What on earth is wrong with you?” Anna stared. “You think me the odd one, for carrying a knife?”

  Lockwood leaned back against the wall, silent as stone.

  “What did you mean to do? Throttle him to death?”

  He refused to answer, instead staring fixedly at some point in the distance, his breath rasping as though he’d been the one nearly choked. She turned to follow his look, but nothing appeared of interest. Fine-dressed ladies and gentlemen were recessing into the assembly rooms, while the mischief makers by and large had succeeded at shoving out the door, past guards who knew better than to manhandle wealthy swells.

  Frowning, she turned back to Lockwood. He looked waxen. “What is it? Did you know that boy?”

  “No.” The word was almost inaudible. He took a deep breath, then used the wall to push himself to his full height. “It’s nothing.”

  His voice sounded unsteady. Perhaps he was shocked by himself. One moment the boy had knocked into him—the next, he’d had the lad pinioned, like a cobra on a mouse.

  She started to touch him, then thought better of it. “Your reflexes are superb,” she said—trying for humor to defuse his strange mood.

  “Yes,” he said briefly.

  The doors thumped shut behind the last of the concertgoers. Now they stood alone in the entry hall, with only the jaundiced regard of the beleaguered guards to keep them company. A muscle flexed in Lockwood’s temple, as though he was grinding his teeth. She had the odd impression that he was fighting some inner battle.

  Why this impulse to comfort him? She had spoken to her solicitor of divorce.

  And then you let him ravish you in a carriage.

  “Are you all right?” she asked finally.

  “Yes.”

  Were these monosyllabic replies designed to irritate her? If so, they began to work. She blew out a breath. “Then stay here all night if you like. I’m leaving.”

  He caught up with her at the door. This time, as they descended the steps, he did not offer his arm.

  She should have been glad. She did not want it, after all.

  Instead, she felt a great loneliness sweep over her, with him not a foot away, and the greatest city in the world glimmering around them in the dark.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A noise awoke Anna.

  She sat up in bed, her breath coming quick as some nightmare faded from her mind. The fire in the grate burned low; no noise came from the connecting chamber.

  Lockwood had deposited her home, but had not come inside—informing her, with cold courtesy, that he was wanted at the club to discuss some bill. She did not believe him, of course. By the newspapers’ accounts, he appeared in Parliament these days only to cast votes for his party, and his withdrawal from his former, more vigorous role in the debates kept everybody puzzled but her.

  He was useless now. Living off her money, throwing parties and buying things, and not much else. He had gone to his club to get drunk, no doubt. But the noise that had woken her had not come from his rooms. When she crossed on silent feet to open the door, she found his bed empty, the sheets neatly tucked.

  She stood in silence, conscious of the drumming of her heart, until she was certain she had imagined the noise. She turned back for her rooms—

  It came again: a distant yell, abruptly cut off. And then, equally dimly, what sounded like cheers.

  It was coming from below. Were the servants brawling? She would sack the lot of them, Lockwood’s objections be damned. She strode back into her room, taking care not to wake Jeannie in the dressing room as she added a wrapper to her nightgown, and then a heavy cloak over that.

  Carrying a candle with her, she made her way down the stairs. In the entry hall, a familiar boy lay snoring on the marble tiles. The reek of liquor wafted up from him.

  “Hey,” she said, and when that did not wake Wilkins, she gave him an ungentle nudge with her foot.

  He jerked awake and leapt to his feet in one simultaneous motion—an impressive trick, but not the reason she stepped backward. His cravat had come unwound. A ropy scar encircled his throat.

  Somebody had tried to hang him.

  He goggled. “Ain’t—ain’t it late, ma’am?” He scrubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “Beg pardon, I didn’t think—I was listening, I swear! Had somebody knocked—”

  “Enough.” Her tone emerged too sharply in her effort to mask her shock. “Regardless of the hour, you are not to sleep on the job. Much less on the floor!”

  “I—yes, ma’am.” His bow was a respectable effort, but undone by his half-swallowed belch. “I won’t do it again, I promise.”

  She doubted that. But she found herself reluctant to scold him. He looked so remarkably young—nineteen or twenty at most. Yet that scar looked old, silvering. Somebody had abused him terribly when he was but a child.

  He shifted, clearly made uneasy by her study of him. “Some warm milk might help,” he said. “If you can’t sleep. I could go fetch it for you.”

  “That is not the job of the night porter,” she said sternly. “But . . . Wilkins, I do wonder—”

  A raucous cheer came from the interior, causing Wilkins to blanch.

  “Yes, that,” she said. “I do wonder if you might explain it.”

  “Ah, ’twas probably a dog. Ever so many strays in—”

  Another cry interrupted him. A snippet of hoarsely shouted song. Anna lifted her brow, daring him to persist with this nonsense about dogs.

  He blew a breath through flattened lips and shrugged. “Some of the staff, ah, they’re—given to singing hymns before bed.”

  “Right.” Shoulders squaring, Anna turned for the hall.

  “Ma’am!” Wilkins came scrambling up on her heels. “Ma’am, it’s no sight for you!”

  “Praising our Lord and savior? Nonsense. It sounds quite wholesome.” As Anna stalked through the corridor, the sound died away again, the thick Persian leader cushioning her footfalls. The hall was paneled in burgundy brocade, and fitted at intervals with long mirrors that reflected the flickering light of brass candelabra. It felt Gothic tonight.

  The first door Anna opened revealed the darkened front parlor; the next, Lockwood’s book-lined study. The third uncovered the abandoned gallery.

  She turned full circle, frowning. That brawling noise—there it came again, from inside the walls.

  Ah! There was another door, cleverly disguised as part of the woodwork. She hunted for the handle.

  “Ma’am, I’m telling you.” Wilkins sounded miserable. “It wouldn’t be fit for you. He thinks you’re asleep, he wouldn’t want—”

  The door opened, revealing a stone-walled passage that pitched sharply downward, and a set of rough wooden stairs.

  Her breath caught as the sound came more clearly now. A man was groaning—in pain.

  Someone was being tortured in the cellar!

  She was not prone to melodrama. But as she turned to face the alarmed servant, that scar gave her awful ideas. “Your throat,” she said tightly. “Who did that to you?”

  Wilk
ins flinched, then groped hastily for the ends of his cravat. She had embarrassed him.

  Alas, it seemed more important now to have an answer to the unthinkable question roiling her brain. “Was it my husband who did it?”

  He recoiled. “Why—God save you, ma’am, from such a thought!” Head tipping, he gave her a marveling, appalled look. “Lock saved me, he did!”

  Lock? What a wondrously informal mode of address for a servant. “Is that so?”

  “Aye, that’s right, from the very noose itself!”

  This notion suggested a dozen equally ludicrous possibilities. “You mean to say that the Earl of Lockwood rescued you from some criminal—”

  “He wasn’t no criminal. He was the bloody chief!”

  This outburst clarified nothing. “The chief,” she said flatly.

  “Aye, of the prison camp!”

  “The . . . prison camp.” He might have been speaking Greek. That odd accent made him difficult to follow. “What, a—a prison camp in New South Wales?” She blinked. “Do you mean a penal colony?”

  “Whatever you call it,” he muttered. “If it wasn’t for Lock, I’d be dead—we’d all be dead by now—”

  “You mean to say you met Lockwood in a prison camp. In a penal colony.”

  She expected him to laugh. He was young and had a drunkard’s sense of humor: poor, very poor.

  Instead, the color drained from his face. He studied her intently, then stepped backward. “I . . . forgive me, m’lady, I misspoke.”

  “Oh, don’t stop now,” she said coolly. “I am most interested to hear how the Earl of Lockwood came to rescue you from—execution, was it? In a prison?”

  The boy looked hunted suddenly.

  “I—I must go watch the door.”

  He fled the way they had come. She moved to follow him—and the shouts from below resumed, calling her attention back to the ominous darkened stairs.

  A pity she’d never had a taste for Gothic novels. She felt certain that they would contain a great deal of useful advice for a woman in her situation. They would probably advise her against walking down a darkened stairway in her deviant husband’s house, particularly when it sounded as though someone were being strangled below.