by Rowan Nina
“Oh, I will,” Jane assured him. “I’ve only seen part of the volume on Lepidoptera, but nothing of the others.”
Alexander looked at her for a moment, then placed his hand on the table and bent to her level.
“You’ve no idea how much you have to offer the world, Jane. Never doubt that. Never doubt yourself.”
To his surprise, a veil of tears shimmered in her eyes. His stomach knotted at the sight of her distress, at the memory of her reaction to the idea of his marrying Lydia.
Jane blinked rapidly to banish her tears and gave a quick nod. “Yes, sir.”
Alexander stepped away, then stopped when Jane spoke his name.
“Lord Northwood?”
“Yes?”
“What about Lydia? Will she still… being Lady Northwood and all, will she still be able to study mathematics and write papers? To work at the ragged schools?”
“Yes, of course. I never intended to prevent her from continuing her studies. Did you imagine I would?”
“No, sir.” She looked back at the beetle engraving. “That is, I’d hoped you wouldn’t. She needs her work like she needs air.”
Alexander didn’t know what to say. The edge of bitterness to Jane’s voice confused him, augmenting the sadness in her eyes. An uncomfortable emotion reawakened in him, one he hadn’t felt since Talia was a child. The sense that the girl expected something from him, and he had no idea what it was.
“You know your sister well,” he finally said.
Jane turned the page of the book. “No, sir. I don’t really know her at all.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Silence filled the drawing room of Alexander’s town house, the scents of coffee and fresh-baked cake still lingering in the air. Lydia sat by the fire, paging through a book of puzzles.
She turned at the sound of the door opening. Her heartbeat increased as she watched Alexander cross the room to her. He paused beside her chair, warmth radiating from his body, his intent as clear as if he’d spoken the words aloud.
“Is it wicked if we’re engaged?” She shivered as his big, warm hand came to rest on the back of her neck.
“Most definitely.” His voice was low and husky against her ear. “Let’s start a wealth of rumors about our depraved erotic activities.”
Arousal bloomed through her. She stared down at the book. After the betrothal party, her grandmother and Jane had left for one of Jane’s dance lessons, and she and Alexander finished a game of cards with Talia, Rushton, and Sebastian, who’d also left. A bit pointedly, Lydia thought.
Not that she minded.
She ought to go as well.
Her fingers tightened on the book. “Alexander, I… I have work to do.”
“Mmm. So do I.”
“I’ve got to submit my paper before the end of… oh…”
His lips touched the back of her neck. “A paper on how to quantify love?”
“No, I’m explaining a method of representing curves.”
“You already do that most successfully.” He cupped her breasts, then moved his hands up and began removing the pins from her hair.
“Alexander, I—”
“Go on, then.” He continued to unpin her chignon, dropping the pins to the floor and easing his fingers through the long strands of her hair. Pleasure skimmed down her spine.
“Explain your method,” Alexander said.
“Well, it’s called tangential polar coordinates, which differ from a system of ordinary polar coordinates where the position… Oh.”
He captured her earlobe between his teeth. His warm breath brushed her neck. He slid his fingers against the back of her head, rubbing slowly. She melted under the exquisite sensations.
“Alexander, I really ought to—”
“No. You ought to do nothing.” He took the book from her, then turned her to face him. A dark gleam appeared in his eyes, making her heart skip. “Except come to me with both abandon and unrestrained enthusiasm.”
Lydia almost gasped as her blood went into full boil. She didn’t have even a second to respond as Alexander wrapped one arm around her waist and pulled her against him for a kiss so heated and thorough that she lost the ability to think.
“So?” he said as he led her up to his bedchamber. “Ordinary polar coordinates?”
“You were listening?”
“And finding it rather arousing.”
Lydia laughed. “Lord Northwood, I’d no idea you were stimulated by my theories.”
“I’m stimulated by everything about you, especially your theories.”
Lydia slipped her hand over his shirt to cup the evidence of his arousal. “Well, in this theory, the pole is a point that determines a certain position—”
“Fascinating.” He lowered his lips to her neck, his hands moving to fumble with the clips binding her hair. “Take off your clothing.”
Instead she worked the buttons on his trousers. “And a given line through the pole is the prime radius…”
“What about the curves?”
“They’re the locus of an assemblage of points—”
“Take off your clothing.”
Lydia smiled. After shedding her clothing and corset, she stepped into his arms. Closing her eyes, she pressed her cheek to his shirtfront and breathed him in. The tension dissipated from his body as heat swept over them. She sank into his touch, into the heat of his body. Her thin cotton chemise allowed her to feel every inch of his hard frame, the delicious crush of her breasts against him.
He pulled back to look at her, reaching to brush her hair away from her forehead. Something flashed in his eyes—questions, uncertainty, doubt—that made Lydia’s heart quiver.
“I love you,” she whispered. She touched his roughened cheek and slid her hand around to the back of his neck. “Please believe that. I love you.”
She drew him down and locked her lips to his. In this, at least, she could be honest. She could love him with every inch of her body in the full knowledge that there was no deception in her overwhelming desire for him.
He grasped her chemise, pulling it upward until the heat from the fire stroked her bare bottom. With a whispered oath, his fingers smoothed and kneaded her taut flesh, moving lower to part her thighs. A fierce shudder tore through her.
He gave a hoarse laugh, his hips pressing against her belly. Lydia sighed, sliding her lips down his rough throat, flicking her tongue out to taste the delicious hollow where his pulse throbbed. She wanted to dissolve into him, to feel the heat of his body merge with hers, his heart pounding against her breasts.
Her fingers trembled as she unfastened his shirt, baring his chest to her questing hands. She loved all the different textures of him, the combination of coarse hair and smooth, muscled skin, the hard ridges of his abdomen.
“Sit down,” she whispered.
His eyes darkened to the color of ink. After divesting himself of his trousers, he sat naked in a chair beside the fire. The firelight caressed his body like a lover—long, sweeping shadows that intensified the hot desire in his eyes and bronzed his taut skin.
Lydia’s breath caught as she looked at him, and a tight pain began to coil around her heart. A chill skimmed over her, causing her skin to prickle with gooseflesh. A moan escaped her dry throat as she went down on her knees in front of him, her hands settling on his thighs. He speared a hand through her tangle of long hair, drawing her toward him with an insistence both firm and gentle.
Lydia closed her eyes. Alexander’s grip tightened on her hair, his thighs tensing beneath her hands as she drew in the length of him. The taste of him spread into her blood.
A log split in the fire, casting a shower of sparks onto the marble hearth, flames catching the fresh wood and escalating higher. Heat spilled against Lydia’s skin. She clenched her thighs together to stem the rising wave of need.
“All the way.” Alexander drove his other hand into her hair. His voice grew hoarse with urgency. “Take it in all the way.”
Th
e rough command elicited a thrill of excitement. Perspiration broke across her flesh. The glide of Alexander in and out of her mouth, the tightening of his fingers against her head, the sounds of his ragged breath, heightened her stimulation to immeasurable peaks.
Her hands skimmed up his thighs and smoothed over his flat belly before she eased back and released him from her mouth. A gasp escaped her lips as she met his hot gaze, her chest heaving and her body so aroused she feared she might come apart with one flick of his finger. Bracing herself on his knees, she rose and grasped the folds of her chemise. In one movement she pulled it over her head and bared herself to him.
“Ah, Christ…” Alexander’s eyes moved with lust over her naked breasts, the curves of her hips. He started to stand and reach for her, but Lydia placed a hand on his chest and pushed him back.
“Wait,” she whispered, her voice throaty with promise.
Alexander winced, the planes of his face glistening with sweat and flickering shadows. “Can’t wait much longer.”
Lydia turned as his hands gripped her hips and drew her toward him. She reached behind her to find him, then spread her legs apart and began to ease herself down. Lydia closed her eyes as her inner muscles clenched around his thick, delicious length.
“Stop.”
His command stopped her movements. “What?”
“Turn around. I want to see you.”
Lydia’s teeth sank into her lower lip, her heartbeat escalating to thunder inside her head. For an instant, she didn’t know if she could do it, didn’t know if she could face him, look into his compelling dark eyes.
Alexander’s fingers tightened on her waist as he eased her away from him. Lydia turned, grateful for the veil of loose, tangled hair falling over her face and shoulders. She settled her hands on Alexander’s upper arms, straddling his thighs again.
“Lift them,” he said.
With a shiver, she cupped her hands beneath her breasts and lifted them to him. He captured one hard peak between his lips, tugging lightly, his tongue swirling over her flushed skin. Lydia shook with arousal as he lifted his hand to cup her other breast. The heat of his breath against her nipple, the glide of his long fingers into the moist crevice below the heavy globes, rained shivers through her body.
She poised herself above him, then sank down in one movement, a cry ripping from her chest as he filled her with inexorable, exquisite pressure. His thighs tightened beneath her bottom, his hands sliding over the curve of her waist.
“Do it.” An edge of desperation cut through his deep voice.
Lydia lifted her hips and brought them down again, pleasure jolting through her. She rose again, straining to find a rhythm, a cadence that would build slow and steady to rapture. Alexander groaned as she engulfed him again and again, her movements increasingly fraught with urgency.
Gripping her hips, Alexander muttered another oath and thrust upward as she sank down, creating an explosive friction that made Lydia’s blood throb. She grasped his sweat-slick shoulders and tried to temper the riot of sensations coursing through her. “I’m going to—”
“Now.”
She cried out, awash in the sensations of his hands on her breasts, his body in hers. Pleasure erupted through her, causing her to tremble, even as she became aware that Alexander was nearing his own climax. She tensed, absorbing the ebbing cascade of bliss as she lifted away from him. She grasped his shaft as his rough shout struck the fire-heated air.
A renewed flow of sensation shivered through her as she watched him ride out his own pleasure. She sat back on his thighs as his body began to slacken. She stared at him, mesmerized by how his damp skin shone in the flickering light, the intense repletion in his dark eyes.
Her husband-to-be.
A violent upwelling of love filled her chest—love and utter wonderment that this man had broken through her well-constructed shell. That she had allowed him in, let him fill every inch of her heart.
He lifted a hand to brush the tangles of hair away from her face. His gaze searched hers, his hand sliding down to cup her cheek. Lydia leaned into his touch. She closed her eyes and anticipated spending a lifetime with this beautiful, complex man who had the power to make her heart soar and her body sing.
A faint but palpable tendril of hope spiraled through her.
Was it possible? Could she have a blissful married life with Alexander? Could she be a good wife to him and still give Jane all she wanted? Could she continue her work without living in constant fear?
Could she be truly happy?
“Is it too late to agree to your other proposition?” She opened her eyes to find him still watching her. Her heart beat with nervous anticipation. She took a breath. “I’ll give a lecture for the exhibition. I’ll do it for you.”
Something dark flickered across his expression, a resurgence of his previous uncertainty. “I want you to do it for you.”
“All right.” She curled her hands around his in promise. “Perhaps I’ll even divulge my thoughts about love and differential equations, though at the risk of shocking my esteemed colleagues.”
“Your colleagues could stand a shock or two.”
Lydia smiled and pressed her lips against his. “Do I get my locket back now or after the lecture?”
“I don’t have it anymore.”
“Where is it?”
“I gave it to Jane.”
“What?” Lydia yanked her hands from his, shock freezing her blood. “When?”
“The day I went to speak to your grandmother.” Alexander frowned. “What’s the matter? You said it was to be hers.”
“One day, yes! Not now, not until…”
Her breath stopped. Anxiety cut into her. She pushed away from Alexander and fumbled for her clothes. Through her fear came a memory of Jane’s strange, distant behavior the night Lydia had told her about the potential marriage.
“Lydia?” He started toward her, concern etched on his forehead.
You’ll be glad to get rid of me…
She froze in the movement of fastening her corset. “Oh, God, Alexander. What have you done?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Lydia hurried into the foyer of her grandmother’s town house. Her fear rustled harder, ominous, about to take wing. “Mrs. Driscoll!”
The housekeeper hurried from the kitchen. “Yes, miss?”
“Is Jane at home?”
“Yes, she and your grandmother just returned from Lady Montague’s tea. They’re in the schoolroom, I believe.”
Apprehension pounding in her blood, Lydia went into her father’s study. The copper box sat in its customary place beside the window, the tarnished metal glowing in a thin shaft of sunlight. She grabbed the box and shook it. Her heart plummeted when no thud of the envelope came from inside. She twisted the lock, but it was fixed shut.
Without thinking, she lifted the box above her head and slammed it hard against the edge of the windowsill.
From the foyer, Mrs. Driscoll let out a startled cry. Lydia fumbled with the lock, then angled it against the sill and brought it down again and again, so hard that dents appeared on the wood.
The lock broke. Lydia pushed the lid open. Though she already knew the contents were gone, a moan escaped her at the sight of the empty velvet interior. She dropped the box to the floor.
“Lydia!”
Her grandmother’s voice was sharp, heavy like an ax. Lydia began to shake. She forced her head up, watching her grandmother’s eyes sweep across the room, comprehending the implications of Lydia’s distress, the broken lock, the empty copper box.
Then… silence. A dry, parched cavern desperate to be filled.
“She… he gave her the locket… I’d hidden the key inside it months ago…”
The words flared and died in Lydia’s throat. She covered her face with trembling hands.
“Did… Has she said anything to you?” she asked her grandmother.
“No.” Mrs. Boyd glanced at the housekeeper, who hovered with anxi
ous confusion in the background. “You may return to your duties, Mrs. Driscoll.”
“Yes, madam.” Mrs. Driscoll hurried from the room, closing the door behind her.
Lydia stared at the box as her grandmother’s shadow moved across it. “Where is she?”
“Upstairs.” Mrs. Boyd nudged open the box with the end of her cane. “Where is the paper?”
“She… she must have it.”
“If she’s told no one, we might still be able to rectify this.” Mrs. Boyd nodded to the door. “Go speak to her, Lydia.”
“If Alexander comes here, keep him away.”
Lydia picked up the broken box and climbed the stairs with a sick feeling of dread. The door to the schoolroom stood half-open, and she knocked before pushing it the rest of the way. Jane stood at the window with one hand flat against the glass.
“Jane.”
The girl turned, her gaze going to the empty box. Lydia moved into the room, her hands tightening so hard on the box the copper edges cut into her palms.
“How… how was Lady Montague’s tea?” Lydia’s voice shook.
“Proper, of course.” Jane lifted her chin and faced the window again. Her slender shoulders tensed. “Delicious. She offered meringues, macaroons. A pain d’épices, she called it. From Rheims. It had orange-flower water and aniseed.”
“It sounds quite lovely.”
“Everything about Lady Montague is lovely.”
“True.” Lydia approached Jane cautiously, then stopped in the middle of the room. “Jane.”
The girl whirled around so fast that her hair fanned around her shoulders. Her mouth compressed, her green eyes hardening. “I hate you, Lydia. I hate you.”
“No.” Terror seized Lydia’s chest. Her hands started to tremble, and she dropped the box onto a table. “Please, let me explain.”
“You lied to me! All this time, you’ve lied!”
“I know, but—”
“Why?” Jane pushed a stack of papers off the desk and grabbed the one that had been locked in the copper box for so many years. “You kept this hidden from me when I had every right to know the truth!”