by Lisa Manuel
What a perfect deceit Everett had wrought on the naïve females in his life, a duplicity all the more ghastly for the love he had taken from them, valued so little, and squandered.
Gone. Not just the money but everything-everything!-she had ever believed in. Staked her life upon.
“Moira?”
Why wouldn’t he go away?
And yet…the thought of Graham hovering outside her door holding a tray of food somehow penetrated the anger and self-pity and roused her conscience. She rose up on an elbow.
“Thank you,” she called out. “It was sweet of you, but I’m not hungry.”
There, perhaps now he’d stop haranguing her. She dragged the lace-edged bed linen higher over her shoulders.
“But you can’t have eaten since our tea with Mrs. Higgensworth yesterday, and I know you consumed but little then.”
Flinging the bedclothes aside, she sat up to better project her voice to the other side of the door. “That is precisely when I lost my appetite.”
And the joy of every memory she’d ever held dear.
“We all missed you at supper last night. Me most of all,” he added, his murmur barely audible through the bulky paneling.
She heard a thump and could only imagine he’d dropped his forehead to the door, his face bowed over the unwanted breakfast tray in his hands. Her conscience raked like the claws of a stretching cat, emerging whether the creature willed or no.
“Letty’s been asking after you.”
Oh, all right. She went to the door and flung it wide—and barely managed to catch the tray as he stumbled forward. She thrust the burden onto a nearby bureau and attempted to step around him. He moved too quickly for her. He caught her hand, drew her against his chest, and fastened his arms around her.
“Don’t.” She shut her eyes to his handsome face, those dimples that danced, not with humor now, but bewilderment.
Still, they had their effect on her, rousing sensations and images that made her want to slink back beneath the bedclothes. Graham licking her wrist, jostling against her in the coach, tugging her through Benedict Ramsey’s drawing-room window. Always, always he’d flashed those teasing grins, those devastating dimples that made her melt. Until at last at Monteith Hall…good heavens …where she had…they had…
Oh, they should not have.
Groaning, she stopped struggling in Graham’s hold and shut her eyes. How could she have forgotten, even temporarily, the very thing he had made so obvious from the beginning? Courting her was a game to him, an adventure, like hunting treasure. It wasn’t his fault; it was simply his nature.
But not her nature, at least never before. She’d been raised on certain principles, taught to observe the strictest propriety. Guided by example in the proper behavior between men and women. Her mother…her stepfather …oh, yes, hadn’t their lessons been exemplary?
Feeling ill, she slid her hands between them, palms flat to Graham’s chest. “Please release me.”
He hesitated an instant, his arms tightening with a possessiveness that threatened her resolve. Then his arms fell away. “Why have you been avoiding me?”
“I’m not.” No, not avoiding him. Avoiding her own disastrous impulses. He was rash, reckless. He brought out the same in her.
No, more than that. He occupied her heart so entirely her joints ached from the restraint of not wrapping herself tightly around him even now.
Only what she had learned yesterday prevented it. Only the replacement of a lifetime’s belief system with the hard, ugly truth held her in place. There were reasons people tended not to marry for love—logical, sensible reasons. Because if someone who seemed as steady and sure as Everett Foster could do what he did…
“Please excuse me. I wish to visit with your sister. You said she asked for me.”
He reached behind him and swung the door closed. “You’ll visit with me first.”
An unsettling sensation fluttered in her stomach. She stared past his shoulder to the sealed door, afraid of what might come out of her mouth if she risked speaking. Afraid, too, of the silence sizzling between them as he stared down at her.
“I understand you’re upset,” he said at length. “But it’s no reason to shut me out.”
“The door was unlocked.”
A dimple flashed, then disappeared as he worked his jaw. “I don’t believe in barging in uninvited.”
Yes, as she had done at Monteith Hall, sneaking to his room and challenging him, throwing herself at him.
She groaned again.
He had been honest, had told her quite plainly he couldn’t stay. Wouldn’t stay. He hadn’t lied as many men would have done, professing eternal love and making promises he had no intention of keeping.
The shame of her behavior roared through her, making her dizzy. Those things they did…things he had learned in Egypt. From how many Egyptian women? How many Egyptian by-blows awaited the return of their English father? Or had he remembered to use a sheath then, too?
Hand pressed to her forehead, she turned her face away. He caught her chin on the ends of his fingers, sending a mutinous tendril of heat coiling through her.
“I’ve no wish to upset you further,” he said. “But Shaun and I both agree the facts concerning your stepfather’s codicil don’t add up. Not by a long shot.”
“You told Mr. Paddington about…” She yanked her chin away. Anger and disgrace rose like bile to burn her throat. On shaky legs she groped her way to the chaise beneath the window. “How could you?”
He followed and crouched at her feet. “If anyone can help unravel this mystery, it’s Shaun. And I trust him completely.”
“What mystery? All is revealed. And now it’s time I went home.” Home, where she would be safe from the temptation of him. She covered her face with her hands, speaking into her palms. “I’m going as soon as I decide what to tell my mother.”
“Don’t be in such a hurry.” He cupped her knee, the warm weight of his palm eliciting a shiver. Perhaps misinterpreting her tremor as a sign of distress, he anchored his other hand at her hip and held her firm. That only made the gathering ache sharper.
“There’s more to the story than we’ve learned thus far,” he said as if unaware of the turmoil he created inside her as his fingers splayed over her hip, stroked her knee. “Otherwise, why all the secrecy? Why was Smythe murdered, the office robbed? Where is Pierson, his clerk? And why did Susan Oliphant lie about knowing your stepfather?”
She focused on his words and tried to ignore the yawning desire begging to be filled. “Isn’t it obvious? My stepfather must have sworn her to secrecy. He didn’t want my mother learning of his betrayal. As for Mr. Smythe and the robbery, a dreadful coincidence.”
“No, Moira. That’s one too many coincidences for my palette. Are you forgetting Nigel? You yourself questioned how an expert rider was thrown from his horse in fine weather.”
Why was he tormenting her with particulars that no longer mattered? Why were his fingertips kneading her flesh with such rhythmic tenderness? She brushed a lock of hair from her damp forehead. “So what do you suggest?”
“I think we should pay Miss Oliphant another visit. Confront her with our questions.”
“No.” She pushed his hands away and leapt to her feet, but he just as quickly pushed to his, blocking escape.
“Why shouldn’t we?”
“Because the inheritance belongs to her son. If you wish to help, go back to the bank and insist the transfer of those stock accounts be concluded immediately. I shudder to think of Michael or any child living in the kind of squalor I saw yesterday.”
“What about you and your mother?”
“My stepfather dishonored us in the most unforgivable way, and yes, I’m confused and so angry I could smash something. But I will not take it out on the child. It’s over.” Her hand shot out in a gesture of finality that sent him flinching out of the way.
“The arrangements my stepfather spoke of before he died were for his family—his other family.
He wished to secure the well-being of his son, his only natural child.” Her voice broke somewhere between those last two words, ripped wide open upon a gush of emotion she could not contain.
She shoved at the arms he attempted to put around her. He encircled her nonetheless, encompassing her struggling limbs with his strength, holding her when she would have run from the room. “I must go. You can’t keep me against my will.”
His hold gentled, but his arms remained around her. “Am I?”
She might have pushed free if she tried. But it was more than simply his arms holding her. It was his very essence—that high-seas, open-air, fresh vitality that permeated her senses and stole her breath. Her heart stumbled in its beat and she clung, fistfuls of linen shirt caught tight between her fingers, her face pressed to the strong column of his neck.
“Moira.” He buried a hand in her hair, tilted her face to his. Her gaze lighted on features gone taut with some powerful emotion akin to fury, intense and fearsome…but beautiful and irresistible, too. “Don’t push me away. You need me now. You know you do.”
She did. God help her, she did. That was the worst of it. Needing him not just now, but for an always she couldn’t have.
Despite her shattered, unworkable heart, her body didn’t seem to care about the future or what would never be. Inescapable need compelled her onto her toes and sent her mouth seeking his.
His lips both hard and warm, breathed life in and out of her, and tumbled her thoughts until there seemed nothing beyond the flame of their kiss. Her fingers tangled in his hair as she groped for more, as her feet suddenly left the floor and the world tipped precariously.
Together they fell onto the chaise. She lay beneath him. Her mind flooded with images from that night at Monteith, but she no longer wished to shove those memories away. No, she would savor them, indulge them, give them life. Desire ruled her, set her breasts aflame, and pooled hotly between her thighs.
When his hand slid along her leg in search of her hems, she helped him yank skirts and petticoats aside, helped him fumble with his buttons. Within her straddled thighs, she guided him, using her hands and little cries muffled against his lips to assure him of what she wished. She felt him against her, smooth, burning, prodding for entry.
Then suddenly, horribly, he went still.
She opened her eyes to find him staring down at her, his gaze fierce, wild, barely that of a civilized gentleman. “We shouldn’t be doing this.” His voice was raw, strangled.
“Why shouldn’t we?” She tried to pull him down, recapture his lips. He wouldn’t budge despite her repeated tugs. The desire rippling through her turned painful, became a sharp-edged vortex of disappointment. “Whom are we hurting? What laws are we breaking that haven’t been broken millions of times already?”
“Not this time, Moira. Not like this.” He rolled off her, secured his trousers, and sat up. Extending a hand, he helped her upright, then compounded her confusion by smoothing her skirts over her legs as if she were some wanton piece of baggage. “It isn’t right.”
The irony of his comment sent a chuckle to her lips. “Was it any more right at Monteith? What difference—”
Realization silenced her and brought her to her feet. One thing had been different at Monteith Hall. The sheath. He didn’t have one now. They would have risked making a child.
“I see.” Her voice fell flat and cold in the quiet room. “I wouldn’t wish you to compromise your scruples, Lord Monteith. If you’ll excuse me.”
Yes, she wished to leave before he saw the pain etched on her face, before—heaven forbid—tears should begin to fall. It shouldn’t hurt so much, his pulling back and being sensible, reducing their lovemaking to such rational terms. If she became with child, he would be trapped. He would lose the life he loved so much.
No, it shouldn’t hurt. He had been honest from the start. Dear God, but it did. It galled her, too, even if she couldn’t explain exactly why. Escape beckoned at her closed door, but he grasped her arm before she took many steps.
He spun her around to face him. “Why are you angry? I stopped us for your sake, not my own.”
“My sake?” She treated him to as cool a glare as she could produce. “It’s your future at stake, isn’t it? You who must single-handedly save a civilization’s history. Far be it for the likes of me to stand in the way of that.”
“What are you going on about?” His hands closed around her shoulders. “I stopped us because it didn’t seem right, not with you so upset, so devastated by what we learned yesterday.”
“What we learned. Ah, you mean that even the best of men betray their families. That none can ever be fully trusted.”
He replied with the knotting of a facial muscle, the beading of his jaw. His hands fell to his sides, leaving her shoulders feeling exposed and chilled. “You can trust in this, Moira. I intend taking care of you. And your mother. Neither of you need ever worry.”
“As my stepfather took care of us?” A laugh escaped her, harsh, acerbic, beyond her control to prevent.
He pulled back if she’d slapped him. “I am not your stepfather.”
With that he stepped around her. A lick of remorse sent her reaching out, fingertips grazing his shoulder.
“Forgive me. I didn’t mean that.”
He faced her again, and they simply stood there saying nothing, each harboring emotions they could not or would not share. They seemed to have reached some barren place where neither understood the other, where they all but spoke different languages. Part of her knew he’d been right for stopping their lovemaking. Part of her hated him for it. Her heart threatened to choke her.
Clutching her skirts, she swept past him and hurried from the room.
Graham stood in Moira’s room for several minutes trying to collect his composure, attempting to still the tremors running hot and cold through the length of his body.
Good God. By all that was holy, he’d wanted her. Wanted her so acutely, even now, the rage of his need threatened to send him after her, refute his damned principles, and take her wherever he found her.
When exactly had he grown this burdensome thing, this conscience, and what sort of devil was it to drive him to insult a woman by not making love to her when she all but begged for it?
Had he been wrong? She’d certainly made him feel wrong. A true cad. But the act would have seemed too much like…sex. Like groping, lustful sex devoid of the tenderness that should accompany lovemaking. He hadn’t been altogether certain they’d done the right thing at Monteith Hall, but it had felt right. Had felt like heaven.
This had felt entirely wrong.
He wondered who was at fault. Him? Everett Foster? Certainly not Moira. Her world had fallen apart. Her faith in people had been thoroughly dashed, cruelly, leaving little in its place but hurt and confusion. Ironically, he knew exactly how she felt. Understood firsthand how that sort of disillusionment made a person’s heart twist and bleed and finally shrivel, impervious and numb to future hurts.
Ah, but not completely numb, at least not to Moira. She’d taught him something these past weeks. Despite the disappointments and betrayals of his past, he could, indeed, still feel. Still hope.
Still…God help him…love.
But he hadn’t been able to say it. Hadn’t been able to convince himself it should have been said.
Her pronouncement the other day at Monteith echoed through his brain. You and I are so very different… You are reckless and daring and bold… I am cautious and practical…
Why fight the truth? Why pretend he was more than he was? Whom would it benefit? Moira? He shook his head as he traversed the corridor to his bedroom suite. She deserved a better sort of man. Not a reckless, cynical blackguard.
Alone in his room with the door closed, he poured a brandy. Then another. It didn’t help, didn’t dull the sense of failure that hounded his every thought. He finally set the snifter down and strode from the room.
His feet took him to Freddy’s suite. Freddy, a
nother of his failures. Baxter had assured him earlier the worst of Freddy’s illness had passed, and he’d slept through the night. Graham would just poke his head in the door, to make sure.
He never expected to find the room occupied by both Moira and Letty, seated side by side in armchairs next to the bed. Less expected was the sight of their clasped hands bridging the small gap between them. Their backs were to him.
“Mama doesn’t know,” Letty was whispering. “The truth would make her distraught, so I told her only that Freddy felt under the weather. She sat with him before supper last night, while he was awake. Somehow he pasted on a brave face and attributed his ailment to corrupt oysters.”
“I shan’t breathe a word to the contrary,” Moira promised.
“She wasn’t at home when we brought him in. Good thing, too, for he became ill shortly after.” A shudder traveled her shoulders. “Violently ill.”
“Perhaps that was best, to purge his body of the poisons.”
Letty nodded. “Poor Freddy. I didn’t realize how unhappy he’s been.”
Graham winced at the simple comment, knowing his absence from England was at least partly to blame.
“We all have our trials.” Moira tightened her hold on Letty’s hand.
“Yes, but I should have sensed that he needed help. I am his twin. That makes me closer to Freddy than anyone. But I’ve been selfish, too immersed in my own affairs.”
“Perhaps you haven’t been happy, either, dearest. It’s difficult to watch over others when our own needs go untended.”
“Perhaps.” Letty paused, regarding their brother. “But if I don’t look after him, who will? I am the elder twin, after all.”
The assertion stabbed at Graham’s conscience. Ah, Letty, berating herself for what should have been his task. His responsibility.
His privilege.
“The years since Papa died have not been easy for us,” his sister added.
God, no, especially when their elder brother had abandoned them, as well. All those years he had considered himself the injured party. Even upon returning home a few weeks ago, he had griped about his self-indulgent brother, spoiled sister, and spendthrift mother. His hand closed around the door frame; he wanted to rip it from the wall.