Winter Garden

by Adele Ashworth

  Yet in a manner Madeleine knew he was flirting with her now, teasing her, exciting her physically. She sensed it all as she felt his nearness. She was experienced. She recognized the various forms.

  “I wonder what the lady will think of me?” she asked a bit impishly, one brow raised, knowing she was pushing.

  His eyes scanned her face again. “I imagine she’ll be jealous—of your beauty and your presence at my side.”

  She flushed but didn’t look away. Neither did he, which she found oddly gratifying. She couldn’t stop there, though. “You think she’ll be jealous when there’s obviously nothing between us?”

  Without pause, he whispered, “She’s not blind, Madeleine. She’ll see it.”

  That made her pulse quicken. What exactly will she see, Thomas? she wanted to ask, but couldn’t. She gazed at him in speculation, trying to keep a sharp focus on the issues as her thoughts strayed to his hard, mesmerizing features: his magnificent eyes centered intently on her; his large, powerful hands so close to her body, and the vivid intrusion of what they might feel like grazing the skin on her throat and shoulders, the tips of her breasts.

  Madeleine wavered, lowering her lashes and turning her gaze to the fire, wishing he’d sat in his chair like he was supposed to do.

  “I’d be more inclined to believe Rothebury is smuggling the opium,” she argued pointedly.

  He didn’t respond right away, and whether he was surprised by her abrupt return to the topic of their concern, she couldn’t guess.

  “No conclusions, Madeleine,” he said at last. “Not yet. We have a great deal of work to do and much to learn before we can draw any.”

  He was right, of course. But he didn’t know how much she knew about opium. “Thomas, if Lady Claire is addicted, as you suspect, even if it’s just to laudanum, I find it difficult to believe she could remain in charge of an organized group of smugglers.” She inhaled deeply and looked back into his eyes. “I’ve seen opium addiction before, and its effects. If she is using it daily, her mind is otherwise occupied. She is not smuggling.”

  “Then we will observe and learn what we can,” he replied, completely serious.

  It took her a moment to realize he was not discarding her opinions, nor disbelieving her account. He was being thorough. She had no idea what to say so she just nodded faintly.

  An invisible wave of tension passed between them—hot and thick and silent. Thomas recognized it as she did, noting her discomfiture, the sullen look in her beautiful eyes, the grim line to her mouth. He knew her worries, her past fears, and it took all that was in him not to lean forward just six tiny inches, blend his lips with hers, and kiss all her troubles from her forever. And she would respond. He knew that, too. The wait to make love to her was physically painful now as she was here, alone with him in the cottage, by his side every day. He wanted to move forward with his intentions, but that would never do. She wasn’t prepared for the acts and consequences, and neither was he. He needed more time.

  He’d thought of her all day as he’d crouched uncomfortably in the cold brush, watching nothing happen, wondering at her success, what the English ladies would think of her, how she would react to their baiting and veiled insults. She was regal and polished and smart, and gifted in the art of deception. He would have loved to see her in action.

  Now she sat so very close to him, so lovely in firelight, so exposed to him in her feelings, so confounded by their mutual attraction to each other that she wasn’t sure he noticed. She wondered if he’d touched her neck on purpose, and if he would touch her again. The thought made him smile, and she glanced to his mouth. He would take care of her confusion eventually.

  She stirred a little and adjusted her skirt, pulling the silk away from his thighs so as to keep them from coming into physical contact. Her deliberate action puzzled him, as they’d sat touching from shoulder to knee by the lake only days ago, and it hadn’t seemed to bother her then. Now she appeared uncomfortable, nervous about something.

  “Anything more I should know?” he inquired rather casually.

  Without looking at him, she reached up behind her head and pulled the comb from her hair, tossing it on the tea table, releasing her long, thick braid to slide over her shoulder and down her right breast. It looked like silk the color of dark autumn leaves. Someday he would weave his fingers through it, put his face against it, and inhale the fragrance he could only now faintly detect.

  “Yes, there is something more to tell you, Thomas, and I’m not sure—” She stopped, and after a moment’s hesitation, she stood and gracefully walked to the hearth, staring at his music box on the mantelpiece. “I’m going to be blunt with you about this and I hope you’ll not be angry.”

  “Angry about what?”

  She gathered her thoughts, then straightened her shoulders so that her gown tapered perfectly down the curve of her spine. “Through no intention of my own, the conversation at tea turned to you.”

  He leaned back, watching firelight reflect off the smooth, milky-white skin at her neck. “I assumed it might.”

  She raised her gaze to the ceiling briefly, then turned around again to face him squarely, though defensively folding her arms across her stomach.

  “Forgive me, Thomas,” she expelled quickly, “but the ladies were suggestive, asking questions and offering comments that were not of their concern. I had to put a stop to the rumors so I started one of my own.”

  Thomas didn’t know how to take that precisely, but his curiosity was building. “Explain it to me, Madeleine.”

  She licked her lips. “Desdemona asked me if I were frightened of you. I told her no. Then Mrs. Mossley observed how large you were—are—and that prompted Mrs. Rodney to ask me if I found you virile.”

  His body tensed from both nervous anticipation and pleasure-filled hope. “And how did you respond?”

  “I said that I did,” she confessed softly, her eyes simmering as they gazed boldly into his. “I also said I found you appealing.”

  Slowly he lowered his arm so that he could sit forward, forearms on thighs, listening to the steady thumping in his chest, biting the inside of his bottom lip to control the grin that threatened to escape his blank expression. “I see.”

  She cleared her throat. “That’s not all.”

  “I assumed as much, since the fact that you find me virile and appealing isn’t something that would make me angry, Madeleine.”

  Her eyes widened, and she shifted her feet on the rug, though otherwise ignoring the remark.

  “Thomas, they were cold to me initially,” she continued dauntlessly in a bright, clear voice, “because they already suspected we were lovers and had been gossiping about it. The only way I could think to save both of our reputations so that we could remain together long enough to finish our work was to discreetly tell them that we have no sexual interest in each other.”

  He said nothing, just looked at her.

  She raised her chin a fraction and untangled her arms, running her palms nervously down her hips. “And the only way I could think of to make them believe that was to inform them all that you are impotent.”

  The clap of distant thunder cut through the shock that followed, and Thomas’s only thought was that he’d never been made speechless in his life until now. He gaped at her for a slice of a second, a sliver of fury digging into his skin at her audacity, but then it dissipated just as fast while the humor of it all invaded instead.

  It was actually a very smart response on her part. Brilliant, really. He didn’t live here. Nobody knew him personally, so it didn’t matter, except to his masculinity, which was flagrantly damaged. But as a woman she probably hadn’t considered that. And he didn’t need to ask how she’d explained to five prominent Winter Garden ladies that he couldn’t perform. His injuries would be accepted as proof enough.

  She eyed him carefully for reaction, fidgeting, although she tried to hide it. She stood almost directly in front of the fire, hands clasped behind her now, her body
silhouetted from the glow behind her as the room grew dark with coming nightfall. He rubbed his hands together and cleared his throat, at last attempting to find his voice.

  “Well,” he said, and couldn’t think of anything else appropriate for the moment.

  She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry, Thomas. I know that’s something deeply personal and none of my business—”

  “No, it’s our business, Madeleine.”

  She raised her lashes again, frowning delicately, unsure.

  He waited, thinking, and then he stood with hands on thighs and slowly strode to her side, facing the fire as she faced away from it. She didn’t move her feet, but her body stiffened beside him.

  “We have to be able to work together,” he finally admitted, soothingly, looking not at her but into the burning embers. “If others suspect our involvement sexually, it will make it that much more difficult for us to succeed. I believe I’ve mentioned this before.”

  “Yes.”

  The word came out raspy.

  “We will have to be careful,” he added quietly.

  Perplexed by that, she turned her head sharply to look at him, and he did the same.

  “Not everybody will believe the lie that my war injuries are severe enough to keep me from desiring you as a woman, Madeleine. Or reacting physically to your presence.”

  Her eyes were huge, the blue of them dark and liquid soft. The skin on her face shone radiantly, half shadowed, half golden as light from the glowing fire played upon it. Her full lips were moist as she licked them from an expectation of a touch she wanted but couldn’t comfortably take. At this moment in time he would give all his worldly possessions to know what she was thinking.

  “I’m…glad you’re not as mad as you could be,” she whispered, partly in defense, partly in continued confusion. “I feared that.”

  “Really?”

  “You’re imposing, Thomas.”

  It was meant as a compliment, and he knew it. He nodded and turned his attention back to the fire. Seconds ticked by. Then in a husky whisper, he acknowledged, “Your decision to explain our relationship that way was well timed and rational. It was smart, Madeleine.”

  He could feel the anxiety ease from her body, her arms relax at her sides.

  “I hope you don’t think I’ve damaged you for all the marriageable ladies in Winter Garden.”

  She was trying to lighten the mood in her quest to understand him, and he had every intention of letting her. He wanted her to know. But he didn’t want light. He wanted dark desire between them, uncertain excitement, unmatched sensuality and erotic thought. Potent passions she could draw on with eagerness in the weeks to come.

  Turning to face her fully, his side to the fire, he took a step closer. Then he raised his arm and rested it across the mantel, behind her shoulders, running his fingertips along the music box as he stared into her eyes. She didn’t move, but the smile had left her mouth.

  “Nobody concerns me but you, Madeleine. What I really fear is that you might begin to believe that because of my injuries I won’t be able to perform as a man.”

  His tone had darkened, and she’d noticed it. It startled her, too, very much so. She stood so still suddenly that he could no longer tell if she breathed.

  He inched closer so that he towered over her, his body feeling the static charge of hers, his nose inhaling the pure woman scent of her he’d already come to recognize, his legs lost in the folds of her flowing gown, his heartbeat discernible to him now as it thundered from thoughts of touching her, of raising his hand and closing it over her breast. Just enough to caress the swell beneath silk and lace. Just for a second of pleasure.

  She saw the heat in his eyes. “Thomas…”

  His breath quickened, his jaw tightened, and above all else he wanted to feel her. Slowly he leaned over her, into her, his face near the slender curve of her neck, just an inch away from touching. He detected the warmth from her skin, inhaled deeply of her, then exhaled very gently so that his warm breath caressed her cheek and ear. She shuddered, and that reaction, one she couldn’t control, impaled him with a sharp, powerful charge of satisfaction.

  “I’m not impotent,” he disclosed in a rough whisper. “I’ve never been, and near you I never could be. Even now the evidence is within your reach.”

  A slight sound escaped her throat, barely heard.

  “I react to you, Madeleine, respond to the sight of you. But we cannot be lovers. It would complicate things.” He closed his eyes, and in a harsh breath against her ear, he added, “I just wanted you to know you’re not fighting desire alone. I feel it just to think of you.”

  Gradually he backed away from her. She trembled now, but her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, and she didn’t open them when she felt him move. Her breathing came as quickly as his, her lips parted seductively, begging contact, and Thomas couldn’t take any more.

  “The fire is burning, Maddie,” he said gruffly, standing erect beside her again. “I need to walk in the cold for a while.”

  He left her then, swiftly and silently.

  Chapter 5

  Opium was the drug of the ages. First used in the ancient world, the wonders of the poppy plant had been proclaimed through time from Europe to the Far East. Because the plant grew well in only warm climes, a vast and growing trade through the centuries resulted in relatively easy access to all who partook. Extraction of the juice was difficult, so early users either ate parts of the flower or mixed them with liquids for drinking. In the early sixteenth century, Philippus Paracelsus, an unconventional Swiss physician, arbitrarily named a remedy based on opium ladanum, later to be called laudanum—a liquid mixture made primarily of opium and alcohol. This was the miracle cure for many, and easily and cheaply obtained. Nearly everyone consumed opium in some form, for its calming affect and its ability to deaden pain. All except Madeleine who knew its destructive properties better than most. She’d seen them, had experienced them firsthand for nearly twenty years.

  Her mother had smoked it daily, along with her friends, becoming an addict at a very young age. Smoking opium—as opposed to eating or drinking it—created a far more intense rush of pleasure. It also produced more irrational behavior when the pleasure dissipated, sometimes even physical pain and vomiting, and ultimately a growing dependency, which her mother had experienced early. Madeleine was always there to see it. This was the primary reason she’d become the victim of her mother’s anger, shifting moods, and the outright center of her distress and years of depression. Jacques Grenier, initially a friend to her mother and fellow actor, and Madeleine’s first lover when she was no more than fifteen, had smoked it, too. But Jacques had controlled his intake as her mother had not. He’d also never physically and mentally punished her, as her mother frequently did when the affects wore off.

  Because of her childhood experiences Madeleine despised any medication or product of consumption that impaired the mental faculties, including even wine, which she rarely more than sipped. She knew her limits, just as she well knew addiction when she saw it. Sitting now in Lady Claire Childress’s dark and eclectically furnished dining hall, she was looking it straight in the face.

  The lady had positioned herself for their luncheon at the head of the long maple wood table, now covered with a burgundy lace tablecloth and what remained of their meal on exquisite white china. Thomas sat at her right, followed by Madeleine. She’d inwardly questioned being seated next to Thomas rather than to Lady Claire’s left, and then it occurred to her that this was intentional. With this arrangement the woman received Thomas’s undivided attention, as he couldn’t talk to both of them at the same time, while Madeleine, in the seat behind him, was placed as if at an inferior station. In a manner of speaking, it was clever manipulation on the woman’s part, albeit obviously so.

  Expressionless footmen stood nearby to lend assistance should they be needed, but aside from their silent presence, it was only the three of them to be seen or heard. And as the lady was somewhat ineb
riated herself and didn’t seem to care what her household employees were privy to, she spoke freely, and almost entirely to Thomas.

  Conversation during a surprisingly delicious meal of salmon mousse, cheese soufflé, chilled corn salad, and baby peas, had generally consisted of talk about Lady Claire herself, her late husband, her estate, which upon first glance was quite impressive, and naturally about Madeleine’s employment in Winter Garden. The lady had been quite frank in her disapproval of that. To put it mildly, she loathed her female guest upon first sight, and Madeleine understood why. Lady Claire fancied Thomas to a noticeable degree and she didn’t appreciate another woman in his company. Just as he had speculated would happen last Thursday.

  Madeleine and Thomas hadn’t spoken to each other much at all since then, since the evening he’d so aroused her with nothing more than implicit words and stimulating smells and his deep bass voice resonating a superbly controlled lust. Their topics of conversation had become formal again, almost awkward, largely about work and insignificant subjects. He’d left early on Friday only to return in time for dinner. But they were keenly aware of each other. She’d caught his eyes upon her whenever he was near, and from an experience she’d been drawing on a great deal recently, she knew his thoughts were about her. She only wished she knew what those thoughts were precisely.

  Finally this morning, after her first long bath at the Kellyard Inn, she’d dressed for their luncheon in the same day gown she’d worn to Mrs. Rodney’s tea, swept her hair up in conservative fashion, and together she and Thomas had walked side by side in silence, through the village teeming with Saturday activity, to the north end of town and onto the lavish private estate of their hostess for the afternoon.

  Thomas, gracious in manner and word, had introduced her as his translator, of course; and she’d been received coldly, as expected. At first sight it would be evident to anyone that Lady Claire had at one time been beautiful, probably spoiled, and raised with selfish expectations like many in her class. Now she was wispy thin, frail to the point of collapse, and the aging of her skin was most apparent. She couldn’t be more than forty-five by Madeleine’s estimation, and yet she looked a good fifteen years older. She wore a well-made, expensive gown of deep bronze satin that would no doubt look smashing on someone whose figure curved becomingly from bust to hips. On her, however, the excessive fabric looked heavy, and hung off her body like loose drapery. Her light brown hair, pulled up neatly into a large chignon at her crown, had only just begun graying, but it had faded to dullness and was probably brittle at the ends. It was her skin, though, that had suffered the most at the hands of her indulgences.