“I’m leaving as soon as Grey arrives,” he said.
“You’ll do no such thing,” the earl said, poking his finger into Arthur’s chest.
“Don’t do that,” Arthur warned him. The shock of Violet’s words had worn off. A rising tide of frustration and panic had replaced it and would need some release.
“Do what? Do this?” The earl poked him again. “You will not leave her. It will break”—the earl poked Arthur even harder—“her”—this time, he used the flat of his hand to shove Arthur back a step—“heart.”
The first punch Arthur landed was ill-timed. Grantham leaned forward as Arthur’s fist flew, and the blow glanced off his ribs instead of square in the middle of his stomach.
“You asked her to marry you, you giant gudgeon,” Arthur said in disbelief.
Quick on his feet despite his size, the earl grabbed Arthur’s arm and wrenched it behind his back. Arthur had forgotten Grantham was once a soldier.
“Yes,” the earl spat from between gritted teeth. “But she wants to marry you.”
Arthur shot his right foot back between Grantham’s legs and yanked him off his feet. They landed in a heap behind the settee and rolled around, each trying to pin the other to the ground.
“No, you are an earl. You can protect her. You should marry her,” Arthur insisted.
Grantham pulled Arthur’s head back and grabbed his cravat. “No, you do it.”
They hit an end table and sent a tower of books flying.
“What in the name of the Merveilleuses are you doing?” cried Lady Phoebe.
They froze, Arthur with his fingers mere inches from Grantham’s eyes, and Grantham with one hand around Arthur’s throat, holding a fireplace poker above his head.
“Are you two fighting?” Violet pushed past Lady Phoebe and set her hands on her hips. Both women wore matching expressions of disgust.
Arthur and Grantham traded sheepish glances. An overwhelming urge to laugh tore through Arthur, and an answering grin split Grantham’s face. When the earl’s shoulders shook, Arthur bit down hard on his bottom lip and smothered a snort.
“Fighting? No, my lady,” he said with as straight a face as he could manage. Grantham shook even more.
Lady Phoebe’s mouth flattened in disbelief. “What are you doing, then?”
“I lost something,” Grantham sputtered, covering his laughter with a cough.
“Your bloody mind,” Arthur whispered.
“Why are you both on the floor?” Clearly, Violet didn’t believe a word of their story. Arthur got to his feet and held out a hand to Grantham, but he twisted Grantham’s wrist as he did so.
“It fell under the settee,” the earl wheezed, stepping on Arthur’s foot. “Kneland was helping me search for it.”
Grantham wrenched his arm free of Arthur’s bruising grip and brushed a smudge of dust from his lapel, then proceeded to do the same to Arthur, whacking at his chest with undue enthusiasm.
“If the two of you are finished with your search, I have an announcement to make,” said Lady Phoebe. With a flourish, she executed a deep curtsy in Violet’s direction. “The unsung heroine of noxious gases everywhere has triumphed.”
Arthur’s joy at finally pummeling Grantham bled away at the news.
She’d finished her formula.
Grantham swooped Violet into his embrace, but Arthur remained frozen in place.
“I surprised her in her workroom and wiggled the news from her. She wasn’t even going to tell anyone until after the event tonight. Such humility, although admirable, shan’t rob me of a midmorning glass of champagne,” Lady Phoebe declared.
Violet ducked her head, but she couldn’t hide her pleasure in the accomplishment. Why should she? Of all the chemists in the country, the government had come to her, and she’d delivered.
“All these years of listening to you yammer on about Avocado’s law, and it turns out you weren’t spouting nonsense, after all,” Grantham teased, his handsome face awash with genuine admiration. “Good work, Vi.”
Arthur swallowed a bitter pill of grief and self-loathing, ashamed that his first thought was of his own loss, rather than of her great achievement.
“I shall tell Cook and Mrs. Sweet to prepare something celebratory,” he said. Holding Violet’s gaze, Arthur bowed and spoke with as much honesty as he could bear. “Well done, my lady. Well done.”
Despite the roses of pride blooming on her cheeks, Violet’s thin smile told him that she, too, recognized what her success meant for them.
As she made for the doorway, she paused and glanced over her shoulder.
“Did you find what you’d lost, Grantham?” she asked dryly.
“No, but you know what they say . . .” Grantham laid his hand on Arthur’s shoulder. Arthur stared at the big man, but he didn’t move away. “You have to lose something first to realize it’s what you’ve been looking for the whole time.”
22
FREEZING RAIN BEAT at the few buds brave enough to emerge from the branches. Summoning a hansom, Arthur carried out his errands without stopping, mindful of the time slipping away from him.
It didn’t matter what Grantham had said; the assignment was finished. Everything would return to the way it was before Arthur first met Violet.
Nothing would be the same.
By the time he’d finished his errands, the upper floors of Beacon House were deserted. Staff were gathered in the club for last-minute preparations. An army of silver raindrops marched double time down the roof, throwing themselves against the battlements of its walls and windows. To the rhythm of the tiny pellets against the glass, Arthur climbed the stairs, an unwieldy package beneath his arm.
Shifting his parcel, he stopped to check that a casement window lock was secure. How often had he walked the back hallways of houses over the world on afternoons such as this? All those years of self-imposed distance to save lives. A terrible irony that on the one assignment he could not keep his distance, the stakes were the highest he’d ever encountered.
He never should have allowed that first kiss.
He would remember that kiss till his dying days.
Arthur’s thoughts continued in circles as he made his rounds until he paused at the doorway to Violet’s bedchamber.
Violet’s bedchamber.
Those two words still had the power to set Arthur back on his heels.
When no one responded to his knock, he entered the antechamber and walked through to Violet’s bedroom. Here, the walls were painted a vibrant pink; grey skies and the lone light of a candle had mellowed them to a dusty rose. Mounds of pillows and thick, quilted counterpanes of deep plum and burgundy topped the bed.
Scandal was one whisper away. Despite his best intentions, he would never be the man Violet needed. She deserved someone who had words at the ready when tears appeared. A man without scandal attached to his name. A father to her children.
Children.
A tiny flame of hope he’d thought died long ago burned deep within him. Best put it out before he fell prey to Grantham’s words, before he forgot the world outside these doors.
Setting the package on her bed, Arthur leaned over and set a finger to the dent in her pillow. He imagined himself resting here, Violet lying at his side. Were he a different man, his first thoughts on wakening would be of pleasure: admiration for the plump curve of her arm, the arc of her dark lashes against her skin, the sweet half gasp she made when she came. Were she a different woman, it might be his touch guiding her from untroubled slumber to early morning bliss. Instead, she had a dream, and he was going to find a home.
“A man!”
To the left of Violet’s bed, a square of light fell on the floor from the opening to her dressing room. The call had come from within.
“This is . . . help . . . so ridiculous . . . ,” Violet’s muffled vo
ice came again. Arthur decided her words comprised a request for help.
Far be it from him to disappoint a lady.
“What woman would formulate such a stupid, torturous . . . Hello? Alice, is that you, dear? If you can give me one good reason for my bosom to be pushed up to my chin other than for the amusement of men, I will double your wages. All my breasts are good for, aside from the suckling of children, is balancing the heft of my bottom.”
“The problem is your vantage point,” he remarked as he entered the room.
“Arthur?”
She must have been conducting an explosive experiment in her dressing room. The chamber, papered with a pattern of pink and gold chrysanthemums, was carpeted with a blanket of garments in varying shades. Rows of shelves stood empty except for a solitary pair of boots and a crumpled straw bonnet. A glass bowl filled with orange pomanders and dried lavender stood precariously close to the edge of a dresser, next to a small table lamp and a basket of handkerchiefs.
Arthur could see no sign of Violet, however. For a panicked second, he considered whether she was buried alive beneath the mess. Instead, her head popped out from the side of a tall screen, camouflaged by even more discarded dresses hanging over the top.
Shutting the door, he leaned against a counter and again surveyed the disaster.
“What on earth . . . ?” he said.
“Don’t ask,” Violet warned. “I’ve made a mess, and I will clean it up. In the meantime, I am not a contortionist. I am stuck in this dratted corset.”
Only a tiny lamp and a small round window lit the room, yet her skin glowed like a pearl. The powdery scent of cloves hovered in the still air. Beneath her distress rung a note of amusement, hinting at an ability to find humor in any situation, including those of her own making.
Part of Arthur wanted her to remain frozen in time after he left. To never know any heartache or loss again, to never find melting pleasure or heated passion with any other man. Not until he met Violet had the selfish, possessive part of his character become so prevalent. He wanted her to stay right where she was without him.
The better part of him, the man he hoped she might remember, sent a silent prayer heavenward that Violet would never stop being herself. He imagined an octogenarian Violet, mumbling about the uselessness of undergarments and the tyranny of fashion while she tossed her dresses left and right. He hoped she continued to drive her household to distraction, never stopped delighting in educating the people around her, and always kept her sense of humor.
“Alice disappeared once she drew a bath. I’ve tried to undo the ribbons on my own, and I cannot loosen the knots. Can you fetch me that robe, and I will cover myself while you help me?” She came out from behind the screen. “As I said before, I cannot imagine why . . . Oh. You heard my reasons why, didn’t you? That nonsense about bosoms.”
Staring at the floor, Arthur hid his delight at how her words went stumbling into one another each time he called forth her blushes. There had never been anyone like Violet in his life before, and there would never, ever be another woman who moved him as profoundly. It took all his willpower not to leave and pretend time had stopped.
“Are you laughing at me, Arthur?”
“I am smiling,” he said, dropping his hand from his mouth. Why trap his delight and admiration within him? If anything, it did her good to watch him set it free. “Reflecting on my good fortune at being the one to rescue you. I can appear heroic at least once before I go.”
“Are those the heights to which you aspire?” she asked. “Catapulting yourself across a table to stop a bullet is nothing, I suppose. Catching my fall from the top of a bookshelf, chasing off a thief, putting out fires left and right. Are these not heroic?”
Arthur hated the word hero. Heroes were feckless men at the head of the pack, heedless of the damage left behind. Cowards were those who had seen the end of a battle and knew that was one place they never wanted to be again.
A coward would walk away right now. Minimize the casualties. Put a quick end to the suffering.
A hero was a fool. A hero would run straight over the edge to feel the fall one more time.
* * *
“DID YOU SAY you needed my help?” Arthur asked.
“Yes, please. Pass me that wrap?”
“Your wrap? I can’t seem to find it,” he purred.
Thrills of excitement ran beneath Violet’s skin. She’d donned a new corset this morning, and the chemise beneath was a pleasing shade of ivory.
She supposed she didn’t need a wrap. He had seen her naked many times before. Violet bit her lip and stepped over a pile of petticoats. Arthur’s expression revealed more appreciation than any of his inventive compliments could.
“You must come closer, my lady,” he said, his teasing tone at odds with the hunger in his eyes. “It may take time for me to complete this task in such low light.”
When Violet hesitated, he stiffened. After a quick sweep of the room, his gaze returned to her. “Unless you want me to call Alice?”
“Oh, no.”
A standing mirror showed her a glimpse of her rounded hips, and her breasts flowing over the top of the corset. Bowing her head, she presented him with the tangled mess she’d created.
Twice, she opened her mouth to speak, and twice she swallowed the words, afraid she might ask for more than he could give.
What could she say? The truth?
He’d broken her apart when he’d first entered her life, cracking open the shell she’d spent years constructing around herself.
Now, when he left, he would break her again.
It would be a necessary breaking, though, and the pieces would fit back together in a different way. Violet was a scientist, first and foremost. An object remained forever at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. If Arthur hadn’t come into her life, she would have remained the same lonely, insecure woman she’d been at the end of her marriage.
“Am I pulling too tight?” he said.
Violet regarded Arthur over her shoulder. “No, of course not. I was thinking of something else. Everything is fine.”
Those eyes of his missed nothing. But how inconsiderate that he wouldn’t let her lies stand.
In the city of London, hundreds of thousands of people woke, fought, loved, and prayed in a cacophony of sound and color. The premature end of a lady’s affair with her bodyguard was an inconsequential event in the grand scheme of the history being made outside her walls.
Why then, did every exhalation, every blink, every small brush of their fingertip against the other’s skin feel so momentous? How could the vast world shrink to an afterthought when she was in the company of this man?
The corset came apart in his hands. He tossed it to the side, exposing her with a flick of his wrist.
“I wish I could see you,” she told him. “In all the times we’ve been together, you’ve kept yourself hidden from me. If you are leaving and this is to be our last time, I need to be . . .”
“On equal footing?” he asked.
“On equally shaking ground.”
Arthur hesitated, and Violet held her breath. Leaving off the corset made this easier. The moment stretched and, as so many other things between them, took on outsized importance now that time was running out.
This would be the last of the barriers between them to fall.
Intent upon his expression, she nearly missed the act of him untying his cravat. The strip of linen slipped to the floor next to a dressing gown. His coat came off with little effort, his clothing having been tailored for ease of movement. He was not an indolent gentleman with a valet to dress him. If nothing else, the speed with which his simple garments fell away was a reminder of their places in the world outside.
Not here, however.
Not now.
She said nothing as he unbuttoned the fall of his trouse
rs and reached behind his head to pull off his shirt. Biting her bottom lip, she drank in the sight of him, bare-chested, pants hanging low on his narrow hips. The head of his erection pushed against his linen smalls, and dampness bloomed between her thighs in answer.
The outline of his secret anatomy was visible beneath his skin. A deltoid expressed in the slope at his shoulder, the delineation of his obliques appearing as rectangles with rounded edges. Open him up, and she could give a scientific name to each part of him. The bones of his arms and hips, the major and minor muscles, the organs that kept him moving and breathing.
All that knowledge meant nothing when she beheld the sum of him: the dark curls covering his chest between two copper-colored nipples, the way his thighs bunched then lengthened as he bent to remove his stockings, a smattering of pebble-sized white scars dotting his side, and a larger scar rising red and angry above his left elbow.
“Can I . . . ?” Violet made to touch his chest but waited for permission.
With a sweet hesitance, he nodded. True to form, he reached out and took her hand, placing it on his sternum and holding it there for a moment. Determined stay in control and remain on guard.
“Let go,” she coaxed him.
With a wry shake of his head, he dropped his hand, and the walls came down.
Violet explored his body with the wonder and anticipation she had for a new theory or a challenging experiment. She reveled in the noise he made when she set her open mouth against the skin beneath his clavicle and sucked. A rational part of her mind noted that Arthur was as pleased when she set her teeth to his nipple as she was when he nibbled hers. The rest of her brain dissolved into a pleasant fog. All that mattered was sensation, the search for a way to sink into him.
“Why have you hidden yourself this whole time?” she demanded, running her hands up and down his arms, marveling in the texture of the hair on his legs and the way his jaw clenched as she caressed his cock.
“Easier to take on an assassin when your dangling bits are tucked away,” he explained.
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