London Lace, Series Complete Set

by Catou Martine

  “The vet’s coming back tonight. To, you know… put her down. He says she won’t recover. That it’s the most humane thing to do.” His voice trailed off.

  Eliza ran her fingers gently along Jezebel’s fetlock. “Good girl,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry, Todd. She’s a great loss.”

  He looked up. Their eyes met. Eliza saw so much sorrow in Todd’s eyes, and a dawning acceptance.

  “I’ll be with you, if you want,” she said. “When the time comes.”

  “Thank you,” he said. His lips smiled but his eyes remained sad.

  “Do you still want to ride?” said Eliza.

  He nodded. “I’d enjoy that.”

  Todd saddled up Honey and Fanfare, two great riders bred to hunt.

  “Honey was my father’s favorite,” said Todd. “Jez birthed Fanfare but he was never ambitious enough to race.”

  Todd gave her Honey, who would follow Fanfare anywhere.

  “You’re sure, I’ll be all right? I’ve only been on a horse three times in my life and two of those times were at the Sheffield Fair Days pony rides when I was ten and eleven.”

  Todd laughed. “We’ll take it easy. Honey’s mellow. And we won’t go far. I have to get you home for dinner.” He winked at her.

  They trotted through the first meadow and then walked a trail through a copse of Mountain Ash. Eliza wondered if she’d have a sore bottom later. Coming out of the trees, they followed a trail alongside a creek lined with oaks. The slanting sun fell through the leaves coloring everything green and gold. The sun was still quite high in the sky. The days were long this time of the year and this one in particular was very mild.

  Fanfare slowed down and Honey stopped right behind him. Todd slid from his saddle and dropped his reins. Fanfare started munching the grass.

  Todd came over to Eliza and helped her out of her stirrups. She slid down into his arms and he held her there.

  “I’m sorry I got so emotional before,” he said.

  “I don’t mind. It lets me know that you’re real.” She ran her fingers through his hair and pulled him in for a kiss.

  When the two of them were together it was as if no one else in the world existed. But the truth was, others did exist. And there were certain others Eliza needed answers about.

  Todd pulled a blanket out of his saddlebag and spread it out on the mossy grass near the creek. Then he walked over to Honey. He came back with a bottle of wine and two glasses.

  “Was that in my saddlebag all this time?” said Eliza. Todd grinned and nodded.

  “You are a strategic romantic, I must say. You’re all broken up about Jezebel and yet still you manage to pack the horses.” She shook her head.

  “I had help this time,” said Todd, seriously.

  That made Eliza wonder who else might be hidden in that great big manor house. She was going to have to bring up the young woman in the hall. Eliza wasn’t going to spread her legs again until she had more answers.

  “I think Marjorie and Albert are worried about me,” said Todd uncorking the wine. Eliza held the glasses while he poured.

  “They’re worried that you’re worried. And that you’re sad.”

  “Really?” Todd was thoughtful as he sipped his wine.

  “They think it’s a good thing that I’m here.”

  “Do you agree with them?”

  Her lips twisted into a half smile. “I don’t know.”

  “I do. I think it’s a good thing.” He leaned back on one of his elbows and looked up at her. He smiled. He looked happy and content. “Kiss me,” he said.

  She set her glass off the blanket, nestling against a clump of moss, and leaned back until she was on her side facing him. She let her lips brush his.

  “That wasn’t a real kiss,” he said.

  “No more real kisses until you divulge your secrets, Sir.” She lay on her back and stared up at the sky through the tangle of leaves fluttering above her.

  All of a sudden she was staring at Todd’s face rather than leaves. He was straddling her, holding her wrists above her head, not too hard, but still, she was pinned.

  “Are you threatening me?” he whispered huskily.

  “Maybe.”

  He smiled in that dark sexy way of his. “I kind of like that.”

  “I’m being serious, Todd. I’ve waited long enough. You have to tell me about Melissa Selfridge.”

  He sighed and rolled off of her. He settled on his back next to her and looked up at the sky, too.

  “So Lizzie wants to know about Lissy, hey?”

  Eliza propped herself up on one elbow. “I told you I don’t want you to call me Lizzie.”

  “Would you prefer ‘Busy Lizzie’?”

  Eliza turned away from him. She sat up and crossed her arms over her knees. He placed his hand on her back.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.” He sighed again. “The funny thing about love is that everyone thinks it’s between two people but it never is.”

  First he brings up her sordid past and now he was talking about love? She held her knees tightly.

  “Two people fall in love and suddenly everyone’s interested—friends and family, acquaintances, bloody hell, even reporters and hired help.”

  Wait, was Todd saying he had fallen in love with her? Eliza tightened her grip on herself.

  “And what was beautifully born out of the present, in an inspired moment between two people whose paths crossed fatefully…”

  Now he was talking about fate? What was in this wine?

  “… is suddenly encumbered by both the past and the future. His and hers.”

  He had brought up her past and was now referring to some encumbered future. This was not going as Eliza had expected.

  Todd sat up next to her. “I really don’t care about your past, Eliza, but if you—”

  “—Maybe you should!” She jumped up. “Do you want to know why I got that nickname? Busy Lizzie. Do you?!”

  “It doesn’t matter to—”

  “—I’ll tell you! Because I was a slut. I got ‘busy’ with a ton of blokes who couldn’t have cared less about me. And you know what? I didn’t care. I didn’t want to care. And I didn’t want anyone to care about me, either. I grew up in a rubbish part of Sheffield to a lousy deadbeat father and a depressed and disappointed mother who still happens to be alive but I never visit her even though she lives alone in a squalid little apartment—.”

  “—Eliza, I don’t—”

  She held up her hand. “—You don’t need to know, or you didn’t want to know, but now you do. No matter how long our little fantasy charade was going to last, everything about the past was going to come up eventually, and not only come up, but come between us. Because there can’t be an us! So don’t go on and on about love or fate because you’re right in what you said: the past catches up to us and the future is full of questions that need answers.”

  “Eliza, stop. Sit down.”

  But she didn’t stop and she didn’t sit down. She grabbed Honey’s reins while she kept talking.

  “I don’t need to know about Melissa Selfridge anymore because that’s exactly who you’re going to end up with, or someone like her. I am an interlude, a distraction, someone meant to fire you up to start thinking about love and the future and… and… I guess I did my job. I did what Tori asked me to do.”

  “What Tori asked you to do?”

  “If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t have met you, and I’m glad I did, truly, but I don’t need to go on fooling myself anymore. Stella helped me get out Sheffield and Tori helped me find my place in London, and you… you showed me more passion than I’ve ever known in my life, and you’ve shown me what I can feel, but if I stick around I’m only going to get hurt.”

  She slipped her boot in her stirrup. On her second try, she managed to swing her leg over the saddle. Honey seemed confused since Fanfare was still munching the grass, but Eliza tugged at the reins.

  “What about me?” said Todd getting up
. “What about me getting hurt? You can’t just do this, Eliza!”

  “You? You, Sir Montgomery, have girls waiting behind every door.”

  She jabbed her stirrups and Honey took off toward the trees.

  Eliza held on for dear life. At least Honey seemed to be going back the way they had come. Eliza prayed she’d find her way home. She’d broken into a canter and Eliza was bouncing around in the saddle trying to get the rhythm. It felt too fast, but Honey only seemed to be speeding up. And now they were running through the copse of trees and not entirely on the path.

  Eliza hunkered down in the saddle as Honey broke into a gallop. It was all Eliza could do to just hold on as they burst through the trees and sped across the meadow. The power between her legs was astonishing. And terrifying. If she fell off going this speed she’d break her neck. She squeezed her knees together. Her grip on the reins tightened until her knuckles went white. She finally thought to pull back on the reins. “Whoa,” she said, but Honey didn’t seem to hear her, or to feel the pull back on the reins. Her hooves made a loud wild thunder on the ground. It got louder and louder and then Eliza realized Fanfare was coming up alongside her, and then passing her.

  Todd crossed in front of Honey and kept galloping. He turned slightly and Honey followed. He galloped along the edge of the meadow and back toward the trees, slowing down incrementally, until Todd was able to grab Honey’s reins and bring both horses to a stop.

  “What were you thinking?!” yelled Todd.

  Eliza tried to catch her breath, as she had none left to answer with. Of course, she hadn’t really been thinking. Half the time she was thinking too much, the other half she wasn’t thinking at all.

  Todd jumped down from his mount and pulled her off hers. She was trembling and her hands were still glued to the reins. He pried her fingers off the leather straps as she leaned against him, knees wobbling.

  “You could have broken your neck, Eliza!” He wrapped the horses’ reins around a tree branch and guided her to sit down on a log. The manor house, where Eliza had been headed, was across the meadow and up a slope and beautifully lit by the spring sunshine. She and Todd sat in the shadows of the trees. His arms were tight around her shoulders.

  “Jockeys do that everyday,” she murmured.

  Todd’s frown broke and he laughed. “Yes, they do. And they are trained and highly skilled. But it’s still dangerous.”

  “Everything’s dangerous,” she muttered.

  “Only if you let your fears rule you.” He kissed her temple and gripped her tighter. “You scared me there, Miss Keating.”

  “You? Scared?”

  “Of losing you, yes.”

  Did he realize how close he was to losing her?

  “Todd, who’s the woman in the room across the hall from me?”

  He pulled away and looked up at the house. He sighed.

  “I was planning to introduce you two at dinner. Her name’s Christine.”

  “Who is she? Wait, before you tell me about her, I want to know what’s going on with Miss Selfridge. And Jocelyn Elliot or Calvin or whoever she is. I want to know who she is to you. Who are all these women, Todd??”

  “They mean nothing compared to you, Eliza.”

  She shook her head. “Not good enough.”

  He swung his leg over the log so he was straddling it. He took her face in his hands.

  “I don’t care about your past and whatever drove you to do the things you did. I see who you are now and that’s what I care about. That’s what I love.”

  Love? She closed her eyes. She did not want to think about love. It was dangerous. Maybe Todd was right. Maybe she let her fears rule her, but they had protected her heart this long, hadn’t they?

  She opened her eyes. Todd was still talking. “I don’t care about your past but clearly you care about mine. You deserve to know it all, but you’ve just had a scare. We both have. And the horses need to get back to the stables. At dinner, I’ll explain everything.”

  He stood up and led her and the horses across the meadow. “I’ll take Fanfare and Honey back to the barn. You go on up to the house.”

  She crossed through the rose garden. All the buds were still tightly furled and green, all their colors hidden. Todd had stalled again. He hadn’t told her anything. Maybe he never would. Jocelyn, Melissa, and now Christine. How many others were there? Eliza couldn’t keep up.

  She walked into the house and found the kitchen. Albert was sitting at the table tête-à-tête with Marjorie.

  “Miss Keating,” said Albert standing up to greet her.

  “I’d like to go home now, Albert.”

  “But you just got here,” said Marjorie.

  “Things aren’t working out.”

  “Things?” Marjorie and Albert looked at one another.

  “Did you have a fight?” asked Marjorie.

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Albert stepped toward her. “I don’t mean to be presumptuous, Miss. But I’ve been around love a few times and I consider myself lucky to be able to say that.” He glanced at Marjorie. “A deep connection with someone isn’t all that common. Are you sure you want to run so soon?”

  “I’m not running.” Or was she? Todd expected her to be there for dinner and now she was trying to sneak away. Not that Albert was making it easy. “You said you’d take me back anytime I wanted to go.”

  “I did and I will, if that’s what you want.”

  “Surely you’re not going to miss my bouillabaisse?” said Marjorie. “I made it special for tonight since Miss Selfridge will be joining us for dinner again. It’s her favorite.”

  “What?” Eliza dropped down onto the bench. “She’s coming here?”

  “He still hasn’t told you?” said Albert. He turned to Marjorie. “What’s he waiting for?”

  She shrugged.

  “Does he know she’s ready to fly the coop?” Albert turned back to Eliza. “Did you tell him you’re leaving?”

  Eliza shook her head. “He thinks I’m staying for dinner.”

  “Then that’s settled,” said Marjorie. “You’re staying.”

  Albert stepped closer to Eliza and was bold enough to reach for her hand. She didn’t mind his gesture. In fact, she rather appreciated his fatherly warmth, his kind reassurance. She hadn’t had much of that in her life.

  “Don’t worry about Miss Selfridge, Miss Keating. She’s a friend of the family is all. Sir Montgomery was doing her a favor stepping out with her last weekend. He was being a gentleman to take on those rumors. She needed his help and he offered it, you see?”

  “No, I don’t see, Albert.”

  “You best stop jabbering, Bertie,” said Marjorie. “You’ve said enough out of turn already.”

  Eliza sighed. “You’re not going to drive me back to London, are you Albert?”

  “It feels like we just got here.” He looked at Marjorie and then he turned back to Eliza. “Tell you what, if you still feel the same after dinner, I’ll drive you back then.”

  “That way you can try the bouillabaisse,” said Marjorie with an encouraging smile.

  “Fine,” grumbled Eliza.

  Eliza left Albert and Marjorie in the kitchen and headed back to her room. She was desperate to take off her riding boots and get out of her horsey clothes and she hoped Cara had dropped off the outfit she came in so she could be ready to go home after dinner.

  As Eliza turned down the west wing and drew closer to Christine’s door, she thought she heard giggling. Something very funny must have occurred to Christine to muster up such a fit of giggles. It almost sounded like two girls in there.

  Eliza slipped into her luxurious room, out of her boots, and poured a hot bubble bath in the beautiful claw foot tub. A calm soak was what was called for.

  By the time Eliza got out of the bath, she was flushed and fragrant from the heat and scented, French-milled soap that Todd must have thoughtfully supplied her with. It irked her that he could tend to certain small details and
yet be such a dolt about the bigger picture.

  Cara had still not returned with her clothes. Sighing, Eliza unzipped the overnight bag still perched on the chest. She reached in and felt something very soft and velvety. She pulled out stretchy green velvet dress with three-quarter length sleeves and a hem that looked like it fell just above the knees. Elegant and sexy at the same time. Tucked under the dress she found a pair of black pumps, a package of thigh-high silk stockings, several pairs of thongs, and a lacy demi bra. She frowned. All of the items were beautiful, exquisite even, but she didn’t like the idea of a man dressing her, even a man who seemed to have good taste and knew her sizes all too well.

  Digging a little deeper in the bag she also found a pair of flannel lounging pajamas, a pull over, a silky slip for sleeping, warm socks, jeans and a T-shirt. So casual was an option, she realized, smiling. Maybe she should go down to dinner in the t-shirt and pajama pants, just to be cheeky.

  At the bottom of the bag, in its own cloth wrap, was a silk robe. Instead of turquoise it was a fiery Chinese red. Stunning. Just looking at it and touching it was arousing, that’s how stimulating the color was, and the texture. Eliza would look forward to wrapping that around her bare skin. Then she thought, why not now?

  Dropping her bath towel, she shook out the robe. She wrapped herself in the cool sheath, which quickly warmed from the heat of her skin. Walking around the room, she let the fabric slide across her thighs and backside. It felt delicious. She lay down on the white bedspread. A mirror on the wall opposite reflected the red stain she made on the white background. She pulled on the robe’s sash and slid her hand across her belly. She imagined Todd standing over her, erect and hungry for her. She felt an ache, deep in her pussy. She wanted him there again. Again and again.

  Why were his secrets and his obligations so complicated? Why were their individual paths going in such different directions? Why couldn’t she have what she wanted with Todd? She slid her finger over her clit, imagining Todd giving her everything she ever wanted…