She'd refused to tell him her lover's identity, but he had little doubt that he would shortly discover it. As soon as he learned her location, he would set a man to watch her house night and day. When a gentleman entered, Connor would be notified. He meant to see Caitlyn's lover for himself. What happened after that would depend on many things.
It was nothing short of amazing, he reflected wryly, how well he had come to know the theater district in the three weeks since he had discovered that Caitlyn was not lost to him through death but only through her own incomprehensible will. Though he had many times cursed himself for a blind, stubborn fool, he could not bring himself to just let her be, even though she had said that was what she wanted. The more he considered the matter, the more he found it impossible to believe that his Caitlyn, with her fiery spirit and loyal heart, could have grown so callous and mercenary during the course of a single year. To have allowed him to believe her dead was a hideous act of which the lass he had known was simply not capable; to take such pleasure in material things was another facet of her character that did not agree with all that he knew of her. But his senses had not deceived him: he had found his Caitlyn all right, miraculously delivered from the dead. She had seen him, known him, remembered everything- and had sent him away, saying that she loved another man. Though everything he remembered of her screamed that this was not so, it was always possible that she was telling the truth. The question that ate at him was: what reason could she have to lie?
Searching for her, he wandered the twisting streets of the theater district, sometimes on foot though it still pained him to walk far distances, sometimes in his own hired curricle, sometimes in a hackney. The weather was for the most part foul. Though it did not deter him from his purpose, it did make his leg ache and worsened his temper, which was not oversweet to begin with. He hoped to see her on the street, then follow her home, but he caught nary a glimpse of her. Instinct warned him to move cautiously until he was sure of exactly what she was about, or he would have stood boldly in the center of every damned street in the area, bellowing her name until she showed herself.
Finally, when all his subtle strategies failed him, he was forced to employ more direct measures. Knocking discreetly on the door of several dozen residences, inquiring for a Miss O'Malley and describing her in case she should be residing there under some other name, he struck pay- dirt at last in the fourth week of his search. A plump maidservant answered the door of one of the neat row houses on Lisle Street. In response to his inquiry, the giggling creature allowed as how she didn't know no Miss O'Malley, but she did know that a young woman answering the description Connor had given her lived along the street a ways at Number 21, though she rarely left her residence. Connor thanked her for the information and walked away. His first thought was to go immediately and discover if he had, indeed, found his quarry. His second was cooler: it behooved him to go home and think this through first.
Like the house where Caitlyn was presently residing, this residence on Curzon Street was not a fashionable address, though it had been one before the street had been allowed to run down. Certainly no English gentleman of the first stare would live thereon, unless his pockets were severely to let. But Connor was not an English gentleman; he had no use for extravagance, and the neat town house suited him just fine. With Mrs. Dabney, a housekeeper- cook hired from an agency, to do the cooking and oversee the running of the house, two maids on whom Mrs. Dabney had insisted for doing most of the cleaning, and Mickeen to act as butler-cum-valet, Connor considered that he and Liam were positively pampered.
Liam, to his oft-expressed surprise, had found much in London to his liking. Connor did not doubt that the freedom of the English wenches (who, unlike the majority of Irish lasses Liam had known, did not consider themselves damned for eternity to Hellfire if they lifted their skirts outside of marriage) had much to do with Liam's reconciliation to their exile. Still, Connor suspected that, like himself, Liam sometimes longed to be back in the fresh air and green fields of Donoughmore. But if he did, Liam didn't say so. Like Rory and Cormac, who in agreeing to look to their long-neglected education to please Connor were making a real sacrifice on his behalf, Liam was determined to do all he could to help his brother cope with grief. Had he hated London, he would have stayed as long as he felt Connor needed him. That he did not hate it was a nice bonus.
"There you are, Conn! I've a notion to visit Cribb's Parlor tonight with some cronies. Would you care to join us? 'Twould do you good to get out, you know." Liam, resplendent in a yellow coat and dark green breeches that were only a small part of his new London wardrobe, was just descending into the entry hall as Connor let himself in through the front door. (Mickeen was not the most efficient butler, but then Connor wouldn't have known what to do with a true butler if he had had one; the fellow would have driven him right insane.)
"What? Oh, no, I've things to do tonight, thanks." Connor was deep in thought and barely emerged from his abstraction long enough to answer Liam, who was frowning at him with some concern. Since Caitlyn's supposed death, Liam had taken upon himself the role of his older brother's keeper. Before Connor had rediscovered Caitlyn, Liam had begun to relax his vigilance, as Connor had seemed to be coping better with his grief. But Connor knew that his behavior of late was bewildering in the extreme. Once or twice he had nearly told Liam all, but he could not bring himself to do so, not yet. He felt that in some vague way it would be disloyal to Caitlyn. His brothers would hate her if they knew she had been alive the entire time he had been half mad with grief over her death. Though his head told him he was being foolish, his heart was not quite ready to give up on her.
Connor was moving down the hallway toward the room he had commandeered as his office when he bethought himself of something. "Mind you don't play too deep, now. My pocket is not bottomless," he cautioned, looking back over his shoulder at Liam with a warning frown.
This typical statement wiped some of the worry off
Liam's face. He grinned, promised not to bankrupt the family, and with a relatively light heart left his brother to himself.
In the office, Connor sat and brooded. He roused himself for supper, then retired to the front parlor, where he stared into the fire without seeing it and sipped at an excellent cognac. After a while, deciding that cognac was not to his taste, he made a decision: he would go for a walk. The cold night air would clear his head, if anything could.
Rejecting Mickeen's plea-almost a demand-that he be allowed to accompany him, Connor donned hat and cloak and set off down the street. He walked for nearly an hour, thinking hard all the while, before finding himself on Lisle Street. Even as he realized where his wandering feet had taken him, he knew that this had been his object all along. From the moment when the maidservant had told him where Caitlyn lived, he had known he had to see her. For good or ill, the lass had a hold on him that was nothing short of an obsession.
No matter what she had said, or done, or felt or didn't feel for him, he could not leave it at that. Though she had told him in plain words that she wished it, he could not just pluck her from his life now that he knew she lived. She had woven herself too deeply into the tapestry of his heart. For love or hatred, there was a connection between them that would not be denied. He had to see her again. It was not a choice but a need. Whether she would or no, his heart cried out that she was his. If somehow she had forgotten what they had once been to each other, then he would remind her. But he would not let her go. Not without one hell of a fight.
Connor walked around the house, ignoring the aching in his leg that warned him that he had walked too far, and eyed it with the thoroughness of a professional. It was near eleven o'clock, too late to go banging on doors. Besides, he had no wish to have whatever servants might be inside attending to his very private meeting with Caitlyn. What he had to say was for her ears alone.
It was always possible that the man she professed to love might be in the house with her, but that was a chance he would have to take. Conno
r smiled grimly, thinking of it. If the man happened to be disporting himself in Caitlyn's boudoir, that might solve the problem forevermore. Confronted with his rival in a compromising position with his love, Connor knew that he would likely kill the bastard on the spot.
The faintest glow lighted the curtains of the upstairs front room. Connor guessed it was her bedroom, and saw at once how he might enter unobserved. An elegant stoop extended along the front of the house. If he could get on top of it, he would have access to her window.
Getting up there proved no problem. He jumped, caught the parapet, and heaved himself up and over. His only fear was that he would be observed by someone from a neighboring house who would summon the watch. But, glancing around, he didn't think that was likely. It was a very dark, moonless night, the kind of night the Dark Horseman had been wont to favor for his rides. The top of the stoop, on which he crouched behind an ornamental railing, was deep in shadows. Occupants of the occasional carriage rattling along the street below would not be able to see him. Not all the houses nearby were dark, but most were. The ones that still showed lights showed them in the bedrooms. The residents of those houses would probably not be looking out their windows while they did whatever they did to get ready for sleep, and therefore were not likely to see him, if he was even visible at all except as a shadow amidst other shadows.
The curtains were drawn. Though his face was pressed against the glass, Connor could see nothing inside the room. He would have to take the risk that the chamber was Caitlyn's and that she was alone. Extracting the knife from his boot, he slid it along the window frame until it caught on the latch. Carefully he worked the knife, and was rewarded by the sound of the latch falling against the window jamb. Then, with utmost stealth, he edged open the window. The curtains still blocked his view. He parted them just a sliver. The sight that immediately filled his eyes almost caused him to fall off the roof.
Caitlyn stood not ten feet from where he peered through the curtains. She was naked, facing him, and she was just stepping into a steaming porcelain bath.
Before she sank into the water he got a good, long look at the whole luscious front of her. Staring, he felt his blood heat and his loins tighten. He had forgotten how achingly beautiful she was.
Perhaps a saint would not have crouched and stared, but Connor had fallen so far short of sainthood in the past year and a half that he no longer had to worry about what a saint might do. He watched her with frank enjoyment, admiring every lovely curve and hollow. Her masses of hair were twisted into a soft pile on top of her head and secured with an elegant gold pick. Her silky black brows were as delicate as brushstrokes against the petal-smoothness of her brow. She was looking down at her hands as she busily lathered a cloth, so he caught just glimpses of the fathoms-deep blue of her eyes. But her lashes were long and black and feathery as they cast faint shadows over her cheeks, and her lips looked as soft and pink as the lushest rose. He admired the elegant lines of her face, the daintiness of her features, the graceful movements of her hands when she lifted them to splash herself with water. The tub stopped his view at her waist, but not above. Like a man too long denied water who finds himself unexpectedly confronted with a stream that is, torturously, just beyond his reach, he stared. The wind blew around him, and small flakes of snow floated down to melt on his skin and clothes, but he never noticed.
He stared at her breasts, remembering how they had felt in his hands, how they had tasted. His body hardened to the point that he was physically uncomfortable in a matter of seconds. No other woman had ever affected him so much so quickly, not even his first. But then, he had never since that first wench gone so long without availing himself of a woman's comforts. Connor reminded himself savagely that he had not had a woman since that night with Caitlyn. As the thought and all that went with it registered, he cursed himself again for being a bloody fool. Here he had been mourning her like a monk, while all the time she had been playing the harlot as if she'd been bom to the role.
He stood up to relieve the discomfort she had caused, adjusting the tight black breeches with a gathering scowl. Whatever rhyme or reason had motivated her, Miss Caitlyn O'Malley had much to answer to him for. And he was here to ask the questions that his shock and hurt had saved her from the last time they had met.
Crouching again, he raised the window inch by inch until the opening was large enough for him to pass through. With knife in hand, he slid one leg over the sill, then his body, then pulled the other leg through. When he was safely inside, he paused, still sheltered by the cascading curtains, and looked carefully around the room. It was elegantly decorated in shades of pink, with a carved four- poster bed spread with a rose satin coverlet. The mirrored dressing table in the corner was of fine mahogany; its top was littered with the miscellany that fashionable women considered necessary to their lives, though in her previous incarnation Caitlyn never had. A tall wardrobe rested against the opposite wall, its doors partially ajar. In front of it was an open valise half filled with dresses and other items of feminine apparel, and a pair of bandboxes. Either she had not yet finished unpacking from the last trip, or she was soon to be leaving on one. He reminded himself to ask her, then turned his attention to other things. Like the dressing table, the wardrobe was also of fine mahogany. Whoever he was, her protector did not stint her materially. Heart clenching like an angry fist, Connor wished the man were there before him now. He would slay him with the greatest pleasure on earth.
Narrowed, his eyes returned to Caitlyn. The bath had been placed before the fire, which, besides the candle on the bedside table, was the only illumination in the room. The firelight bathed her in a soft orange glow, while flickering shadows shifted in the corners of the room. A quick glance followed by a second, thorough one confirmed his original impression that she was alone. Reassured on that head, he allowed his attention to revert to Caitlyn. She was in the process of washing her face. Her eyes were closed tight as she worked soft white lather into her skin. It was clear that she was still completely unaware of his presence. The soap she used must have been scented with lilacs, because the soft fragrance filled the room. For a moment the lovely sight of her bathing naked, accompanied by the beguiling scent, threatened to make him forget just why he had come. But only for a moment.
Moving quietly, he stepped before the tub so that she would see him when she opened her eyes again. As he waited, his arms crossed over his chest, his frown was replaced by a savage half-smile. He'd wager double every groat that Liam was in all likelihood losing at that very moment in Cribb's Parlor that looking up to find him there would give Caitlyn the surprise of her life.
XXXVIII
Caitlyn rubbed the soft cloth across her face, concentrating on the feel of its gentle abrasiveness so that she would not feel the burning pain in her buttocks and thighs. The hot soapy water caused the marks left by Sir Edward's latest beating-delivered the night before-to sting unmercifully. But she was becoming almost accustomed to bathing (indeed, living) with pain and had found that if she concentrated on something other than her discomfort, the discomfort actually seemed to lessen, if not disappear.
Splashing her face to rid it of the soap, she groped for the towel. Minna, the bracket-faced maid Sir Edward had provided for her use along with the house, had set the towel out on the small table by the tub before Caitlyn had dismissed her for the night. As it always did, pride had forbidden her to allow Minna to remain. She could not bear the idea of anyone seeing the shameful marks that bore silent witness to the beatings she endured. Minna was in Sir Edward's employ, hired as much to guard as to serve, Caitlyn suspected. Minna and the hulking butler, Fromer, followed her orders insofar as she gave them. Since she had never requested them to do aught but the most mundane servants' duties, she had never tested their loyalty to the point that they were openly insubordinate. But she had no doubt that that point could be reached: the servants were Sir Edward's minions, not her own. If the two should conflict, she knew that Sir Edward's interests would be
served.
Her groping hand found the smooth wood of the table- top, moved across it. An extra bar of the same lilac-scented soap in which she had bathed skittered to the floor. It landed on the carpet beneath the bath with a muffled thud. The towel must have fallen to the floor too, because she could not find it.
"Devil take it," she muttered crossly and opened one eye to search for the towel. The sight that met her bleary gaze caused both eyes to pop open, along with her mouth.
"I give you good-evening, Caitlyn," Connor said suavely. There was a glint in his eyes that told her he had been watching her for some time. Caitlyn gave a momentary prayer of thanksgiving that he had not chosen to call on her in such a manner the night before, when Sir Edward had, at just about this time, been practicing his beastly ritual on her. The thought of Connor's reaction had he witnessed that made her shudder.
"Cold?" He misinterpreted her shudder and held out the towel, which he had apparently appropriated. She accepted it, closed her mouth, and patted her face dry with great deliberation while she willed herself into her role. When at last she again met his eyes, her own were guarded, cool.
"What are you doing here?"
"Paying you a call. Did you think I would not find you?"
"I hoped you would not."
His eyes narrowed at the calm statement. "Then 'tis sorry I am that your hope was misplaced. If I were you, I'd step out of that water. You'll be chilled to the bone before long."
"If you'll turn your back, I will."
He laughed then, the sound unamused. "Turn my back? Come, come, Caitlyn! Over the course of the past several months, you've surely lost all claims to feminine modesty. You are, after all, no matter how much you profess to love your gentleman friend or how much he may profess to love you, naught but his whore. Just as you were mine. So why bother to pretend to a modesty you cannot feel? Physically, at least, I know you well, from the scar on your thumb to the little black mole on the left check of your luscious behind."
Dark of the Moon Page 31