His Wicked Charm

by Candace Camp

  “Abandoning you,” Con added. His heart twisted a little, thinking of the girl, little more than a child, going through what must have been a frightening experience, however much Lilah discounted it—and then losing the aunt who had always taken care of her.

  Lilah waved his comment away. “That didn’t matter.”

  “I think it mattered quite a bit,” Con replied. “She must have been in the place of a mother to you since your own mother died young.”

  “Aunt Vesta is hardly a maternal sort. She may have lived with me, but I wouldn’t call her influence as being like a mother. That role belongs to my other aunt, the normal one. Aunt Helena took me to live with her in order to preserve my reputation. She knew my name would be tainted with scandal if I remained here with no better influence than a father who spent all his time trying to commune with the dead. Worse, Aunt Vesta could have come back at any time. Even my father saw how bad it would be for me. I could never have made a good marriage. As soon as I made my debut, the rumors would be flying. ‘You remember her aunt, don’t you? Cut from the same cloth, I warrant.’”

  “I understand it now.” And he did. Motherless, largely ignored by her father, deserted—however Lilah might deny it—by the aunt who had raised her, Lilah had been cast adrift. Her rule-abiding aunt Helena had saved her, but it had meant leaving her home and breaking away from everything she had known. “Your antipathy to the occult, the way you stay away from your home, your abhorrence of scandal. It’s no wonder you’re so insistent on following the rules.”

  “Of course I want to follow the rules. Of course I abhor creating a scandal. Who doesn’t? Everyone does. Except you.” She turned and started away, then swung back to say, “I am planning to ride to Carmoor first thing tomorrow.”

  He executed a little bow. “I will be there.”

  Con watched as Lilah strode away. It was no wonder the woman was such a study in contrasts. Imagine living half one’s life in a completely unconventional manner, going to séances, trying to contact their dead mother’s spirit. Then living the other half in the most conventional, rigid, rule-abiding style.

  Lilah regarded Aunt Helena as having saved her. Perhaps she had, at least from a torrent of gossip. But Con could not but think that the woman had stifled Lilah’s spirit, as well. It came out in flashes—when Lilah laughed without thinking how it looked, when she was hot on the chase after the kidnappers, when some idea sparked the light of interest in her eyes.

  There was far more to Lilah than the shell her aunt had sought to create around her. And Con was becoming very interested in discovering what lay beneath it.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  LILAH COULD SCARCELY believe she had said all that—and to Con of all people. He thought he understood her because his own family was odd. But that was precisely why he could not understand what she felt—the shame and anger, the resentment, the hunger to fit in, the determination to be so good, so right, that no one would even think of her as one of those Holcutts.

  Con felt none of those things. The Morelands didn’t embarrass him; he reveled in their reputation. Happy and secure in the midst of his loyal, loving family, he had never felt the weight of others’ opinions. With his twin beside him, he had never been lonely. God knows, he certainly had never been afraid. Even when he was a child he and Alex had sailed into any danger, confident that they would win out—or if they did not, their older siblings would rescue them.

  She hadn’t feared he would be appalled by her story. What she dreaded was his amusement. Con would consider her narrow-minded and rigid to be embarrassed by her aunt’s behavior. He would love the irony that the straitlaced, oh-so-proper Lilah Holcutt had a family as bizarre as his.

  Now he would tease her about Aunt Vesta and her séance or the oddities of Barrow House. He had admitted that he enjoyed annoying her—and she still did not understand that—and this knowledge gave him plentiful ammunition.

  What if he found it such an entertaining story that he told it to others? He would certainly tell Alex; that wouldn’t be too bad since Sabrina already knew Lilah’s family. But what if he recounted it to the others in his family? The women with whom Lilah had become tentative friends: Olivia, who had once occupied herself with revealing fraudulent mediums, his outspoken mother and—worst of all—Megan, a journalist! She must persuade him to keep the story to himself.

  Lilah came downstairs the next morning already dressed in her riding habit. It was a bottle green that went well with her hair. Though the style was plain, as habits usually were, it was set off by the unusual fastening of four large wooden buttons running diagonally across the front. The finishing touch was a small hat accented by a green-and-blue feather that curled forward, almost touching her face.

  Con jumped to his feet when she walked in, his eyes lighting in a way that made her pulse speed up. As they rode to Carmoor, Lilah rehearsed what she would say to him. It was difficult to ask anyone for a favor, but with Con, she was doubly reluctant. She wasn’t sure why, since he had a generous, easygoing nature, but the words stuck in her throat.

  Finally, when they reached Carmoor and stabled their horses, she pulled together her courage and said, “I’m sorry.”

  He glanced at her in surprise. “For what?”

  “Snapping at you last night. I shouldn’t take my irritation with my aunt out on you.”

  He shrugged. “I am immune to insults. Remember, I have three sisters whom I’ve aggravated even more frequently than I do you. I’ve weathered many a feminine bad temper.”

  “I hope—that is, I want to ask you a favor.” Again she paused.

  “Lilah, what is it? Surely you know I would help you in any way I can.”

  “Yes, I know.” She did, really; the sudden realization filled her with warmth. “I would ask you not to tell anyone about...all this.” She waved a hand vaguely in the direction of her home.

  “All what?”

  “My family. My aunt. What happened nine years ago.”

  “Did you think I was going to gossip about you?” Con’s voice turned sharp. “Do you know me so little you think I would do anything to hurt you?”

  “No.” She took his arm, pulling him to a halt. “I know you would not set out to hurt me. But it is the sort of thing that intrigues you, and I’m afraid you might tell your family because it makes interesting conversation. They might repeat it. Or you might mention it to someone else, at your club, perhaps. A jest. A comment. I fear you don’t understand how important it is that no one know.”

  “I don’t understand why it worries you so much, but—”

  “I’ve been so careful,” she told him urgently. “I’ve worked hard to be above reproach. Aunt Helena has taken great care to make sure that the taint of scandal doesn’t cling to me. She wants so much for me to make a good marriage.” Con’s lips twitched in irritation, and she hurried on, “I know that isn’t something that you would care about. But if that scandal came out again, it would hurt not only my reputation but hers, as well. I could not bear it if Aunt Helena suffered because of me, if people whispered behind her back or snubbed her.”

  “Lilah!” Con stared. “That was almost ten years ago, and the scandal was your aunt’s. Society has forgotten about it. In any case, it wasn’t your fault or Mrs. Summersley’s. Why would it hurt your reputation? How would it keep you from making a ‘good’ marriage?”

  “You don’t know society very well if you think that. Ask your sister Kyria. She’ll tell you I’m right. If the subject of my aunt and her peculiarity was raised, the old scandal would be taken out and dusted off. It would be new fodder for gossip. They’d recall that the Holcutts had always been peculiar. ‘Remember what her aunt did. Lilah may be circumspect now, but what if she changes? What if she turns out to be the same?’ Worse, the story would grow with each recounting. Faulty memories would be embellished. Soon people would whisper about bad blood and how I
might taint a family line.”

  “I know how important an appropriate marriage is to you,” Con said tightly. “But any man who wouldn’t marry you because of your aunt’s old scandal wouldn’t be worth marrying anyway.” His face softened, and he laid his hand against her cheek. “You needn’t worry. I will say nothing about you or your aunt to anyone. I wouldn’t have anyway. This isn’t just an interesting story. It concerns you.”

  “Con...” The tightness in Lilah’s chest began to dissolve. Inexplicably, tears welled in her eyes.

  Con swept his thumb across her cheek, catching a tear. He bent to kiss her tenderly. When he raised his head, gazing into her eyes for a long moment, the world seemed still and timeless around them, as if they stood poised on the brink.

  Con stepped back, and the moment was gone. “We should... The house.” He gestured toward the redbrick mansion before them. His movements were a trifle jerky, his voice raw.

  “Yes. Of course.” Lilah pulled herself together. “The key.”

  They walked through the untended gardens, growing in a riot of color, intermingled with weeds, vines and limbs inching into walkways and obscuring statuary. Clearly the house had been closed for some years. The rear door was locked, but Con pulled out his lock picks and had it open in a minute.

  Their steps echoed on the slate floor as they walked down the hall, peering into rooms. If the gardens had not shown the house was un-lived-in, the film of dust over everything would have. Carpets had been rolled up and stowed against the walls, and most of the furniture was shrouded with dustcovers. Tables and shelves stood bare of ornamentation. There was an empty, dead feeling to the house that sent a shiver down Lilah’s spine.

  “I—this feels wrong,” Lilah said, her voice hushed. “We’re intruding.”

  “I know.” Con nodded. “But if Sabrina and Alex weren’t gone, they’d be here, searching with us. I want to find out what’s going on and put a stop to the Dearborns before Sabrina and Alex return.”

  Lilah nodded. “You’re right. They shouldn’t have to deal with the Dearborns again.”

  The first room they explored was Mr. Blair’s office. They roamed around the large room, taking off the desk’s dustcover to go through the desk drawers and searching through the bookcases. Lilah went down the rows of books, uncertain what she was looking for. Now and then, she glanced back at Con, who was inspecting the mantel and fireplace, testing various embellishments for hidden levers. It was hard to keep her mind on what she was doing; it kept drifting back to that tender kiss Con had given her, the depths of his eyes, the touch of his hand upon her cheek.

  She turned and looked at him again. He had left the fireplace and was at the desk, rummaging through empty drawers. A lock of hair had fallen across his forehead; he wore his hair too long and shaggy. But it was hard to pull her eyes away from the way it curled against his collar. As if he felt her gaze, he glanced up. Lilah flushed, embarrassed at being caught watching him—or perhaps the heat was from something else entirely, for there was a look in his eyes, a certain set of his mouth that made her knees want to buckle.

  Lilah whirled away and blindly searched the shelves. Behind her she heard Con close a drawer sharply and walk away. It took a few minutes for her heart to regain its steady rhythm. She moved to another bookcase. Across the room, Con said, “Nothing.”

  He spent a few minutes going down the line of shelves, tilting back two or three books at a time. Lilah stopped what she was doing to watch him in puzzlement. “What are you doing?”

  “Easy way to set up a hidden door. Especially here, where he’s got so many volumes. You attach one of the books to a latch so that when you tilt the book back like this, it unfastens the latch. The whole bookcase is attached to the door, hiding it, and the case swings out.”

  Lilah knelt at the farthest end of the shelves, her skirts pooling around her, and began to make her way toward him. She could hear the continued chunk-chunk-chunk of the books as he dropped them back in place.

  The small thuds became more erratic, then stopped altogether for so long that Lilah glanced up in curiosity. Con was watching her, his hand still on one of the books, and there was a look in his eyes that made her words die in her throat.

  Con pivoted abruptly and walked to another bookcase. His face turned in the opposite direction, he started down the row. Lilah went back to her task, moving rapidly, as if she could outrun the turbulent sensations inside her. Perhaps they should take different rooms. It would be easier not to think about Con if he weren’t right there, and there was the practical notion that it would halve their work time. But Lilah couldn’t bring herself to offer the solution, nor did Con suggest it.

  They moved through the other rooms downstairs. Lilah was ever aware of Con’s movements behind her, and she could not keep from glancing over at him. It grew warmer as they continued to work, and Con shrugged out of his jacket, tossing it over the back of a sofa. He unfastened his cuff links and dropped them in a pocket, then rolled up his sleeves.

  There was something primitively arousing about watching him begin to undress, and Lilah found it difficult to pull her gaze away. She couldn’t recall ever seeing a man do anything like this. Of course, it was highly improper to be in one’s shirtsleeves in company—naturally Con didn’t feel himself bound by such rules.

  She pulled her eyes back to her task, though at the moment she couldn’t remember exactly what she had been doing. Oh, yes, the piano. Somewhat shakily, she straightened the pages of sheet music before her, though it didn’t need it. She hoped Con had no idea what she had felt watching him. What she still felt.

  It was a relief when they left the room and went upstairs. She realized that was a mistake, though, as soon as she stepped foot inside the first bedroom. The room was dark, the draperies shut, giving the place an enclosed, almost-intimate atmosphere. The large bed seemed to take up all the space.

  She could feel a blush rising up her throat and she sneaked a glance at Con to find him, too, staring at the bed. He jerked his eyes away and strode to the far wall to begin his search. Lilah opened the draperies, but it offered little more light, for the shutters outside were closed. It was still too cave-like, too much like night.

  Con let out a muffled exclamation, causing Lilah to jump, and she whirled around to look at him. Con was taking down a painting on the opposite wall, revealing behind it a square metal door embedded in the wall. Lilah hurried over to join him, glad to have her mind once again on what they were supposed to be doing rather than thinking about Con.

  “This may take a while,” Con said, glancing at her. “I’m not as good at combinations.” He leaned closer to the safe, listening, as he turned the knob.

  Lilah inched in, watching his fingers, anticipation rising in her. Con turned the knob this way and that, and after a moment, he leaned his forehead against the safe, drumming his fingers on the wall. “Lilah.”

  “What?”

  “You’re distracting me.”

  He turned his face toward her, and she realized, startled, that she was only inches away from him. Her breath caught in her throat. His eyes were hot, his voice husky. “I can feel your breath on my neck, and I can’t remember a bloody thing.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.” Lilah blushed and started to step back, but his hand cupped the nape of her neck, holding her in place.

  “I like it.”

  As her mind whirled, trying to come up with a response, Con kissed her.

  His lips weren’t tender as they had been earlier in the garden. They were hot and seeking, persuasive, charming her very will from her. Her body was suddenly warm and pliant. Lilah thought she might melt all over, but the idea didn’t bother her. Melting into Con seemed like a very nice thing to do.

  His hands went to her waist, pulling her into his body, and he reeled back against the wall, clamping his arms around her, as his mouth plundered hers. She could feel his b
ody against hers, no longer encumbered by his jacket. He was hard, all bone and muscle against her softness, and Lilah pressed her body against his, twisting as if she could move into him. He made an odd noise deep in his throat and turned, so that it was her back against the wall and he sank into her, moving more boldly than she had.

  Lilah dug her fingers into his hair, shaken by the swirl of sensations inside her. Everything was so fast, so shimmering, so turbulent, she could not take it all in. She wanted to slow down, to savor it, yet at the same time she ached to have more, feel more. Con broke their kiss to trail his mouth across her face, down her throat. She could feel his breath, quick and a little shaky, upon her skin, in a seductive combination with his lips. His skin was scorching, matching the heat that boiled up inside her.

  His hand went to the large round buttons that slanted across her chest. “I’ve been thinking about undoing these all morning. These buttons...” His lips found the hollow of her throat. “God, these buttons made my fingers itch.”

  Lilah couldn’t manage more than an incoherent murmur. His fingers were sliding beneath her riding habit, gliding across the bare flesh of her chest in a way she’d never felt, never imagined. The tips of his fingers brushed the row of lace at the top of her chemise, then slipped beneath it, startling her so much she froze. She stayed that way, not wanting to move, even to twitch, lest he stop the delicious exploration.

  The flesh of his fingers was harder than hers, slightly calloused, his touch so light it made her shiver, and all the while his mouth roamed her neck, the flat hard plane of her chest. And then his hand was cupping her breast, his lips edging onto its soft curve.

  It was shocking. She should be shocked. She was certain she should not make that moaning sound and dig her hand into his shoulder. “Con...” Her breath caught in her throat. She had no idea what she wanted other than that she didn’t want him to stop. She never wanted him to stop.

  But when he did stop, it was only to seek her mouth again, and that was equally entrancing. His hands roamed down her body, over the thin cloth of her chemise, rounding down over her buttocks. His fingertips dug in then, lifting her into him, so that she felt him pulse against her. The only coherent thought Lilah had was how glad she was that she never wore a corset with her riding habit.