Promise: A Lords of Action Novel

by K. J. Jackson

  She hadn’t thought he would do it. Remain a gentleman. But he had kept his promise to not look.

  Now she just hoped he could keep his other promise to find her sister.

  { Chapter 5 }

  “We are to be outside?” Talia asked, lifting the edge of the thick wool cloak draped over her arm.

  Fletch looked across the carriage interior to her, a smile playing on his lips. “We are.”

  Talia nodded, her attention going to the window as the coach jolted to the left after hitting a deep rut in the street. It was a pleasant enough evening—the bitter wind had finally ceased, but darkness was quickly stealing the warmth the sun had created that day.

  “Where?”

  “Vauxhall Gardens.”

  Talia’s throat instantly tightened. “It is not closed for the season?”

  “It has opened for a special exhibition of cold weather animals. They have turned it into a fair that will last five days. It would not be my first choice of entertainment for the evening, but my aunt’s friends are gathering there. All will want to look you up and down.”

  Talia glanced to the window. They were crossing the river. Fingers clutching her skirts under her cloak, she looked to Fletch. “I do not think I can go in there.”

  “The gardens?”

  She nodded.

  Worry creased his brow. “You are concerned with the people or the venue?”

  “Both. I am sorry. Had I known this was the event you wished to go to, I would have told you before you went to all this trouble.”

  Fletch leaned forward, his forearms balancing on his knees. “Talia, I think you can do this. It is near winter, so the gardens resemble nothing like their appearance in summer. As for my aunt’s friends, first, my aunt has decided she likes you, and second, I will not leave your side. I will not be drawn away by acquaintances that I must chat with here. Tonight, you need only to smile and nod your head.”

  His tone was soothing, yet her heart started to speed, thudding hard in her chest. Fletch was logical. Too logical, and for that alone she didn’t want to disappoint him. She had to ignore the fear gripping her. She had promised him she would help him, play this role. She could do this for her sister.

  Her head tilting to the side, she gave the smallest nod, her eyes skittering to the window to avoid his stare.

  A role. She was a besotted admirer of Fletch’s, hoping for a marriage proposal. She needed to concentrate on that. Concentrate on acting the role.

  Think of nothing else. Just Fletch.

  His grey eyes. The humor that easily crinkled his cheeks, drawing dimples. His calm. His strong jawline, always sprinkled with stubble late in the night that her fingertips ached to trace out of sheer curiosity. His uncanny prowess to appear at the right time to save her from danger. His ability to take the utmost care with her. His gentle hands.

  The list of Fletch’s fine qualities manifested far too easily in her mind and Talia shifted slightly on the bench. Apparently, the role of a besotted admirer was not going to be hard to play.

  The carriage stopped, and Fletch stepped down from the interior. He took her fingers to help her descend, and she could feel the warmth of his hand through her kidskin glove. Light snowflakes had started to float through the air, sparkling under the line of lit lanterns along the front brick wall of the gardens.

  It was the warmest she had been in the cold air in years. She wasn’t sure whether it was due to Fletch’s well-chosen dress and cloak for her, or if it was due to Fletch’s solid arm next to hers as she slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow.

  Either way, she was warm, her teeth not gritting hard against clattering.

  Her hand tucked along Fletch’s arm, they started walking and Talia could hear the music and liveliness inside the gardens.

  Her feet stopped.

  Fletch paused, looking down at her.

  “You can do this, Talia. You can walk in here with me.” For as demanding as his words were, his tone was nothing but soft and compassionate. “You already know my aunt and I swear I will not leave your side. You can do this.”

  “I…I…”

  “You cannot avoid everything of your past life, Talia. It will always chase you, and eventually, you will need to meet it and resolve it.”

  He was right. Logical. She knew that. She looked up at the proprietor’s house that held the entrance to the gardens, staring at the Vauxhall sign above the doorway. Yet logic didn’t make her steps any easier. Didn’t make her heart slow to a normal pace.

  She gave herself a quick shake, taking a deep breath. He would soon start to think her insane if she didn’t collect herself. She met Fletch’s eyes and nodded with renewed will.

  He patted her hand on his arm and tugged her forward.

  Inside the gardens, rather than to find his aunt directly in the crowd, Fletch strolled them past the exhibits of penguins, seals, a walrus, three foxes, white hares, a family of puffins, and a polar bear. As much as she found the animals interesting, Talia guessed it was a consideration by Fletch, giving her time to ease into the situation before he brought her in front of his aunt.

  Fletch’s kindness of stalling almost worked, but the knot in her stomach refused to ease. Vauxhall did look decidedly different, as all but the most stubborn of leaves had fallen to the ground, lending an airy, open look to the gardens. But she still knew this place. The buildings. Could not forget what happened here.

  Fletch leaned down to her ear. “Brace yourself. We approach my aunt and her stable of dragons.”

  He pointed them to several tables set on the grounds near the tall orchestra building. Talia quickly spied his aunt, seated at the side of the longest table, watching the crowd with hawk eyes. Six other matrons sat with her, their furs piled high against the cold.

  Talia leaned into Fletch. “Dragons? You said your aunt liked me.”

  “She does. But I did not include her friends in that assessment. They are an entirely different mountain to scale.”

  She swatted his arm, the motion pulling at the wound on her side from the previous night. “You could have warned me.”

  “I was trying to calm you, not aggravate your anxiety.”

  “You just did.” Her hand tightened around the crook of his elbow, her feet slowing as her eyes drifted up. The orchestra building. The musicians had broken from their last set of music, standing and stretching their legs in the open upper level of the octagonal structure.

  Not here. Why did Fletch’s aunt have to be sitting here?

  Talia made her gaze drop from the musicians to his aunt at the table.

  Play the role. Do not look up. Do not remember. Play the role.

  She forced her cheeks to pull back, forced the corners of her mouth to lift.

  “Fletcher, what has you dawdling so?” Aunt Penelope was already jabbing her cane in the air at Fletch. “I have been waiting for you to make an appearance.”

  “And you have forced us to bear the brunt of her impatience,” an elderly woman to the left of Aunt Penelope grumbled, frowning.

  “No more harm than me having to bear the brunt of your current infatuation with your first great-grandson, Edith.” Aunt Penelope knocked the side of her cane on the table. “Come, sit with us, Fletcher and Lady Natalia. I had to send Doreen and the dowager duchess away to procure some mulled wine—truly, just to gain their seats when I saw you approaching.”

  Fletcher and Talia stopped in front of Aunt Penelope. “As much as you would like us captive in chairs, Aunt, we are not about to steal seats from those two. Must you insist on antagonizing them so?”

  “They deserve it,” Aunt Penelope said. “They had the gall to make the animal keeper bring a penguin over to me. Atrocious little animal. The little bugger pecked at my leg.”

  “Not the one with gout?”

  “Yes, the one with gout, Fletcher.”

  “Talia rather liked the penguins.” Fletch looked down at her, a side smirk on his face. Devil. “She thought they were delightfu
l.”

  Talia’s eyes dropped from Fletch and she conjured an empathetic frown as she looked at Aunt Penelope. “I did, but I was not close to them. Now that I know they are entirely rude with their beaks, I have changed my opinion thusly.”

  The cane slammed onto the ground, but only a thud emanated from the cold dirt. Aunt Penelope frowned, though it appeared to be more at the lack of sound from her cane than at Talia. “Do you lack steadfast opinions, dear? Or are you patronizing me?”

  Talia smirked. She should have known Aunt Penelope would hold her to honesty. Rather why she liked the woman so. She offered an apologetic smile. “I do still think the penguins are rather adorable. But best to be admired from afar, I suppose is the lesson.”

  The end of Aunt Penelope’s cane tapped on a leg of the table. “That it is, dear. Come, step closer, I must introduce my friends to you.”

  Above Aunt Penelope’s head in the open-air orchestra building a violinist pulled his bow across his strings, warming to the next set. Just as Talia stepped to stand in front of the first woman next to Fletch’s aunt, the grumbling Edith, Aunt Penelope’s voice was drowned out as the musicians began their next set of music.

  A fast quadrille, the notes sped to Talia’s ears.

  Instantly, she stumbled backward, her hand dropping from Fletch’s arm.

  But the music didn’t stop.

  Whirling dizziness set into her head, and Talia spun, trying to escape the notes. Yet the notes only surrounded her louder, smothering.

  Pushing through the crowd, Talia ran. Through the people. Twisting down the lanes of the gardens. Slipping on the frozen ground.

  Still the music gripped her, clutching and tearing at her sanity. Her heart flew out of control and she gasped again and again for air, clutching her stomach as she sped past the dormant trees into a dark lane of tall evergreens.

  Still, the music held her captive.

  Her feet flew out from under her, an arm clamping around her waist.

  “Dammit, stop, Talia.” Fletch’s voice was in her ear.

  She tried to twist out of his arm, the tips of her boots pointing, scraping for the cold ground.

  “Stop, Talia. Stop. Why didn’t you stop? I’ve been chasing—yelling at you.”

  She jerked, trying to contort her arms free from the cloak, her fingertips jabbing behind her into his stomach to free herself.

  “Stop. Stop twisting. Stop running and I will put you down.”

  No air. There was no air to breathe. Talia’s eyes went frantic, her panting out of control. Where was the air? What did Fletch do to the air?

  “Hell, Talia.” Not letting her escape his arm around the front of her waist, he set her onto her feet, his free hand pushing down on her neck so she folded in half.

  He bent with her, his mouth near her ear. “Close your eyes, Talia. Close them. Breathe. Breathe. Open your eyes and look at your feet. Breathe. Hold that breath. Try again. Breathe. Hold it. Longer. Hold it. Let it go. Another one. Hold it.”

  His words made it past her panic and slowed her. Talia latched onto the last breath, holding it as he commanded. Only when he told her to exhale did she do so. He repeated it eight times until her breathing was controlled once more, if not her heart or head.

  His hand moved from the back of her neck to her shoulder, and he pulled her upright. His arm left her waist and he rounded her, both of his hands clamped on her shoulders as he bent so his face was level with hers.

  “What was that Talia? Why did you run away?”

  “I am insane, Fletch.” She craned her head to the side, needing to escape his look. At least this lane was empty, no one but Fletch to witness her madness. “Leave me. I can make my way home. I will return the clothes. I will not bother you again.”

  “No, Talia, I am not leaving you.”

  She tried to duck and spin away from his hold.

  His grip on her shoulders tightened, and he gave her a little shake. “Talia. Answer me. What made you run?”

  She wanted out. She needed to leave here. But Fletch had her captive. She needed to escape him. Her gaze crept to his face. His grey eyes looked hooded, dark in the shadows of the lane. She looked away. “I am mad—crazy. Just leave me.”

  “Or you can tell me what made you run and I will decide if you are deranged or not. I will not—”

  High-pitched laughter floated through the air to them, interrupting Fletch’s words. A deep baritone chuckle joined in, and a partially entwined couple passed by the end of the lane.

  Fletch’s eyes went above Talia’s head, searching the evergreens. “Here.” His hands dropped from her shoulders, but only to slip an arm behind her waist and steer her several steps to a small alcove denoted in the evergreens with a white wooden arbor.

  He turned her to him in the relative privacy of the nook, blocking the entrance as he lifted one hand to rest lightly on her shoulder. The music became muffled with the surrounding evergreens.

  “Was it my aunt? Why did you run, Talia?”

  Under her cloak, her arms clasped together over her belly as she realized that Fletch now had her even more captive. She drew a breath that shook her chest as it descended into her lungs. Tell him. If she told him, he would let her leave this place. “The music. It was the music, that piece.” Her words were barely audible.

  “The orchestra?”

  For all the times she had refused to allow herself to remember, Talia now had to force her mind to acknowledge the memories that were threatening to drown her.

  She closed her eyes, her voice a whisper. “I was here when Papa died. I was here and happy and laughing with friends. Our butler appeared. He told me here. In front of my friends. In front of everyone.”

  Her head dropped, her words shaking. “He told me during a break in the music so I could hear him. He told me and then they started that same tune. The exact same one. The music drowned out his words. My friends. It drowned out everything.”

  Silently, Fletch’s fingers tightened on her shoulder. To steady her or to keep her from running again, she wasn’t sure.

  She lifted her head, her eyes opening to him. “Everything stopped that day. My friends stopped talking to me. The laughter stopped—the happiness. And the sadness became so overwhelming I could not bear it. So I went numb. Numb, and I have only been surviving since that moment.” Her arm swung out to the direction of the orchestra building. “Since that moment in that very spot where your aunt is, I have not felt a thing. Just survival. I know what I should be feeling, but everything is numb. Everything is nothing except for the panic. And the panic is huge and it was exactly where your aunt was and I just needed to escape it.”

  Fletch nodded and his right hand lifted from his side. Achingly slow, he dragged his thumb across her cheek, wiping a rogue tear away.

  “I am a madwoman, Fletch. I know this.” Her eyes fell closed as her head shook, his thumb rubbing along the side of her face. “Do not burden yourself with me, Fletch. I cannot help you. You picked the wrong woman for this.”

  His hand on the side of her face slipped downward, wrapping along her neck.

  “Tell me if you feel this, Talia.”

  Before she could open her eyes to his words, his lips were on hers, his heat an instant fire to her chill. She didn’t resist—couldn’t resist for the fire that spread through her body as he opened his mouth, his tongue slipping past her lips.

  He teased her, gentle as he took control of her senses, took all of the panic that was threatening to pull her down to hell. He pulled her back to the present. Pulled her into the moment where there was only him right in front of her. His breath weaving with hers. The leather of his gloves slipping under the back of her cloak to caress the bare skin of her neck.

  He pulled away. “Did you feel that, Talia?”

  She dragged her eyes open to him, not wanting to leave the moment. The light flakes of snow fell about his head, melting the second they touched his hair. As much as she didn’t want to—as much as everything was wro
ng in her life—this she felt. She couldn’t deny it.

  She nodded.

  “Good. I did too.”

  He bent again, capturing her mouth without preamble. Harder this time, control evident in every movement. His teeth caught her lower lip, sucking, playing with the delicate skin. The rawness of the scruff along his chin should have hurt, but instead, only elevated her senses, helping her to take in every nuance of his mouth on hers.

  Her arms lifted on their own accord, wrapping around his neck. She damned her gloves in that moment. She wanted to feel his skin, feel his warmth under her fingertips. Fletch had no such problem, for his suddenly bare fingers danced along the back of her neck as his left hand found the front opening of her cloak and slipped inside, wrapping around her waist.

  He pulled her into him, his arm pressing her hips into his body. Hard—every bit of his body hard against hers.

  A low sound, softly guttural, escaped from the recesses of her throat with the motion. Sound she didn’t recognize but fully owned as her lips met his, aching for more of his fire. His fingers traced down the side of her neck, slipping down between their bodies to breach her cloak. Finding her left breast under the heavy fabric of her dress, he cupped it, his fingertips collapsing around the nipple, rolling it through her dress and stays.

  He swallowed her gasp at the touch, and she could feel him smile at her reaction. His fingertips moved, finding bare flesh above the cut of her gown. They slid downward, teasing skin alive and shoving stubborn fabric. Cold air hit her nipple for the merest second before being captured by his palm, by his thumb and forefinger playing, making her strain.

  She could feel him revel in how he could make her body react to his touch, arch into him. Fleeting wonder flashed through her mind at how she had so quickly and completely surrendered all control to him. Yet she could not pull away. Could not abandon the first true feeling she’d had in years.

  Heaven help her, she didn’t want her feet to land on this man, to find footing in his world.

  His world—her old world—had betrayed her before.