As she had last night.
When he’d surprised himself, as well.
A part of him never wanted to surrender her. The other part had stewed all through the day in what it all truly meant.
“Oops!” Brontë dropped her fan. Tris bent to retrieve it and she did the same, whispering once their heads were together, “Ask me to dance. Something. Anything. I beg you.”
They rose and he handed her the fan, nodding in response to her thanks. She stared at him, head angled just so. Expectant. The devil in him derived a fair measure of delight in denying her immediate satisfaction. A wee bit of retribution for the many times she’d dodged providing him answers to his questions.
She spread the fan before her lips. “Get me away from this jerk and I will do anything you want.”
“Anything?”
“Anything.”
The suggestive offer roused hundreds of possibilities. Sensual. Sexual. He had no doubt she meant to convey exactly that message. And to follow through on the promise. It was a powerful impetus guaranteed to spur a man into action.
And stir his manhood.
It did.
While Wyndom droned on about the proper roles of women in housekeeping and motherhood, Brontë incited images of her role in his bed. She trailed the edge of her fan across her collarbone and down the edge of her gown’s low, squared neckline drawing his eyes to the swell of her bosom. A wide band encrusted with colorful beads and crystals of red, blue and yellow bound the edge of the bodice. A wealth of gems marking the treasure beneath. The entire gown hinted at her bounty, in fact. Through the sheer sleeves, her pale skin begged to be revealed. The brilliant blue satin bodice darkened her eyes to the color they changed to when she was lost to the throes of passion. Hints of the ivory silk of her skirts under the diaphanous embroidered and beaded overskirt brought to mind her sleek legs wrapped around his hips. Urging him to the heights of ecstasy.
She dressed for seduction, promised a taste of paradise with her words.
Anticipation whet a man’s appetite. Waiting made relief when it came that much more poignant.
For that reason and to satisfy his own wicked humor, he refrained from granting her request until the lengthy foxtrot came to a close. By that time, she danced from foot to foot with ill-concealed impatience. Hazel, on the other hand, offered him a mischievous smile brimming with approval.
Aye, it never paid to yield to a woman like Brontë too quickly.
“The waltz will be next if I’m not mistaken,” he murmured with a short bow. “Miss Hughes? May I have the honor?”
She bobbed a curtsey with a sardonic pucker of her lips. “What a surprise! I’d love to.”
Handing off her champagne glass to Wyndom, Tris offered her his arm and led her toward the center of the room.
“Took you long enough.”
The muttered complaint brought another smile to his lips. “I strive for your pleasure, Miss Hughes.”
Her sniff of disbelief had him stifling a chuckle. “It would please me to no end to never see that man again. What a dick!”
“Pardon? A what?”
“A dick,” she repeated as they paused at the edge of the dancefloor. “You know? A prick, a bobby, a wank —”
“I understood yer meaning, lass,” he cut in though it meant denying him the full range of her knowledge on the term. “I meant nothing more than to assure myself I heard ye correctly.”
Add another question to the growing list.
“I have no idea who ye are.”
“Sure, you do.”
Tris shook his head. “Nay, I ken yer name, and what I’ve been told.” He lowered his voice. “I ken what makes yer body sing. I dinnae ken ye. Ye seem set to keep things that way.”
His words made her heart sing. How she hated keeping secrets from him when he brought her such joy. “I’ve told you. There are things you’ll be happier not knowing.”
He wanted to press the issue. Nonetheless, he sighed his surrender on the topic. This wasn’t the place to draw a full confession from her, but he had to have something. “Tell me something about ye, lass. Something ye can. Ye said ye’d do anything if I spared ye Wyndom’s company.”
“I think you know what I had in mind.”
He did. And how tempting it was to let the matter go in favor of such a tempting offer. Steadfast in his resolve, he took her hand and turned it palm up, caressing the inside of her silk covered wrist. “This, for example.”
“It’s a tattoo, obviously.” She made a face and rolled her eyes, hoping to dismiss the subject, no doubt. Tris held her gaze and waited patiently. “I was very angry after my father cheated on my mother and they got divorced. It took me a long time to…well, not to forgive him, but to accept it. It means peace and healing.”
A sentiment hardly worth disfiguring her perfect skin for in his opinion, though he accepted the explanation. “And the language? How did ye learn it?”
“Where all the best knowledge is acquired. At school,” she told him. “I did mention I’d attended university.”
That she had. Having gotten something from her he hadn’t known before, he pushed one more time. “And the odd attire ye were wearing last night?”
Her fingers curled and she tugged her hand away. “They were off me so fast, I hardly remember what I had on. Should we see how long it takes me to get out of all of this?”
Her hands slid up his bicep and down again, attempting to lure him from his question. It nearly worked. “Lass, gi’ over.”
She rolled her eyes. “They were pajamas. You have them, don’t you?”
“Aye. I dinnae wear them though.”
Her tongue touched her top lip. “What do you wear? Please tell me nothing.”
Seductive minx. He refrained from responding until she relented. “The bottoms are men’s pajamas. The top a tee shirt, common in America. I wear them because I don’t like long nightgowns. I feel like they’re going to strangle me. Satisfied?”
“Hardly.” Her answer rang with honesty, yet he couldn’t help but think she was hiding something more beneath the truth.
“You want something true?” she asked. “I’ll tell you this; when you get angry or aroused and slip into that deep brogue, I want you even more than I did before.”
Brows high, he looked down into the heated pools of her eyes. “When is before?”
“Pretty much since you left my bed this morning.” The confession stirred the partial arousal that had plagued him since about the same time. The lilting strains of the waltz began. A seductive musical accompaniment to his growing desire and her tempting offer. “Do you want to pick up where we left off?”
Aye, bloody right he did. But bugger it all, he wanted to know more than her body alone.
“I thought we were going to dance?”
Brontë studied the dancefloor and the couples now moving around it, then looked back at him. “I thought waltz and figured I could handle it. Now I’m not sure. This isn’t quite how we do it back home.”
Back home. New York, where he’d been many a time. This was exactly how they did it.
Blast, he would have his bloody answers sooner or later.
For the time being, Tris held out a hand. “I’m sure we can manage it so long you don’t tread on my feet.”
With a shake of her head, she set her hand in his. “I can’t make that promise.”
“You can make up for it later.”
Chapter 23
A week later
Head bent, Brontë brushed the edge of her pencil in a long sweep down the paper. Laughter, teasing arguments over who’d made the better shot in the croquet game nearby filled her ears but failed to cut through her concentration. She added several more lines, smudging them with the tip of her finger until they became soft shadows. Glancing up, she took in the panorama once again.
Couples strolled here and there, parasols held high. Others gathered in small groups talking. At intervals across the lawn, more partook of differe
nt games and activities like those Tris had listed the previous week and that she’d taken part in herself. In the backdrop from this angle, a colorful garden complimented the rainbow of gowns. It might have been the inspiration for a Monet painting.
She’d trade it all in for a nice Monet oil hanging over a big, comfortable bed and some private time to explore the solitude with Tris.
God, she would’ve thought she’d gotten enough of him by now. Instead the need to explore every inch of his body obsessed her. Every crook and hallow. Muscle and sinew. Undeniable urges that had once been foreign to her governed each moment with him. She wasn’t ready to relinquish his company and go home yet. Which was fine. She had all the time in the world.
All the time to take part in a constant game of cat and mouse. Each time she distracted him from his curiosity, he always came back around. His inquisitiveness faded with each passing day however, until the days spent by his side had become free of interrogation and the nights filled with the most delicious sorts of torture.
Hazel continued to think he was courting her. Brontë had the sneaking suspicion Abby persisted in situating them both with other people for no other reason than to irritate her son. Or compel him with a simple case of wanting what he couldn’t have.
They couldn’t know he was having it anyway.
No matter how she enjoyed her Edwardian vacation and the man who thrilled her in so many ways, the commitment they were hoping for wasn’t going to happen. Even if Tris were interested, which he wasn’t. Had he given a clue that led her to think otherwise, she would have left this place already.
It was an affair. A fling. Nothing more.
Yes, keep telling yourself that.
“Oh, I love that detail there.” Hazel leaned close to her shoulder and pointed. “The way you’ve gathered it up in the front? It’s lovely.”
With a smile, Brontë concentrated on that part of her drawing and added a medallion she imagined with silk flowers and crystal beads to the center of the upswept skirt she’d sketched out.
“Yes!” Hazel sighed as she saw it coming to life. “You really are so talented, dear. I can’t imagine how you can come up with something completely different when I thought there were no new dress designs possible.”
“Years of intense training,” Brontë half-joked.
She’d taken to sketching out the dresses and gowns she liked over the past few days. The two dozen ladies in attendance were all fashionable and their styles varied. Rather than continue to bemoan the constant costume changes, she’d decided to embrace the opportunity for a more in-depth study of period clothing. The entire semester of twentieth century costume design she’d taken hadn’t provided such a visual array of popular styles. Bringing her favorite features and details together, she’d begun creating original pieces as well.
Hazel had caught her and taken to the sketches with enthusiasm. Through her efforts, Brontë had been supplied with a large sketchbook, pencils and pastels to complete more new designs. Hazel already had plans for them as new additions to her wardrobe. Her attention and frequent observation of the process had prevented Brontë from indulging in another more secretive activity. She’d almost caught Brontë with her phone in hand one afternoon, snapping pictures to capture the rich colors.
And images of the people she’d eventually leave behind. She wanted, needed something to remember them by other than the memories she made each day.
All around, she was becoming too attached in general. To this place. To the people. Not only to Tris and her ancestors, but to others like Hannah. The young woman had begun life tragically with an abusive father before her mother had run away from him. Though most of the intervening years had been kind to her, the most recent two had not.
Unlike Henry and Tris who’d been spared the trauma of the Titanic’s sinking, Hannah had been on board with her American grandmother. While both women had been among the survivors, a young beau of hers had not survived the calamity. Hazel had mentioned it in her diary. Like other references, however, the impersonal connection had only struck Brontë with sadness. Now, there was the drive to fix yet another thing for someone she’d come to care for. A friend.
Yes, it was going to be hard to leave them all. Most especially Tris. She was growing to like him more than she should. The more she came to know him, his interests and passions, the more difficult leaving would be, but leave she would before things had a chance to go south on them.
“In pink do you think?” Hazel asked. “Henry thinks I look lovely in pink.”
“Henry thinks you look lovely in everything,” she corrected.
“He prefers nothing the best,” Hazel confessed under her breath, a blush blossoming on her cheeks.
Brontë bit her lip and cringed a little. “I bet he does.”
Becoming friends with her great-great-grandmother was incredible. Becoming girlfriends had a few awkward moments. And she’d always thought people from this time were so prudish. The joke was certainly on her. How Granny would laugh.
A sigh lifted her chest before expelling. She missed her grandmother, too.
What you want isn’t always what you need.
The sage advice given to her by both Violet and old Donell echoed through her mind. She might want to stay here longer. She didn’t need to. It might be best if she didn’t. A smart woman would have left already. After the sex, of course. Before the rest of it.
Before it became too complicated.
“Tea, ladies?”
Maybe it already was.
Brontë looked up at Tris with a smile and set her sketchbook aside. “Thank you. That was thoughtful.”
That was Tris. Not that she had him whipped by any means. He pushed back when she pushed too far and debated issues from politics to the war giving no quarter. Occasionally he continued to offer opinions that suggested he was a member of a superior gender. It only led to more arguments that left her to wonder why the hell she was still here.
Given the course of her past relationships, so much arguing and aggravation should have pulled them apart already. Yet here she was. Ready for another round. Why?
Because they made up so nicely?
It was more than that. There was an attractive, primal masculinity in his consideration and solicitude. He was a man who cared for the women in his life, and she liked being one of them.
“You know, I think I might take your sketches and show Hannah, if you don’t mind.” Hazel took the stack of paper and slipped away with a wink.
“She’s not very subtle,” Brontë said, stretching her arms over her head.
“I don’t mind. There’s something I wanted to show you anyway.” He tweaked her chin and offered a hand to help her up from the chaise. “Come.”
The command didn’t chafe at all. She let him pull her up and slipped her arm through his with familiar ease. Depending how you looked at it, this whole escort business was merely another excuse to be close to someone without actually hugging on them.
They strolled at a leisurely pace through the crowds dotting the lawn toward the east wing of the house. Tris opened the door and followed her through after she passed him then took her hand in his. The instant they entered the gallery, her eyes were drawn up as they were each time she came into the room.
“This really is the most magnificent space.”
“Aye, I recalled you saying so and decided I needed to prove you wrong.”
“Because proving me wrong is so much fun?” She smirked at him as he pulled her to a set of double doors at the far end of the gallery.
“Absolutely.”
His smile carried her down a long hall between the morning room and drawing room she hadn’t ventured down yet. It extended past the manor with windows on both sides and ended at a pair of glass and iron doors. With a bow, he swept them open. “Voilà.”
“What…? Oh!” Wonder seized her as he towed her across the threshold. Similar to the squared tower in the central portion of the mansion that housed the main s
taircase, buttresses between each of the high-arching sets of windows curved up to form a quadripartite vaulted ceiling, like those often seen in gothic cathedrals. Except here, not only were the windows crafted of stained glass, the many bowed domes of the ceiling were as well. The noonday sun beamed through them splashing a kaleidoscope of color across the room. “Oh, my God! It’s amazing!”
The windows weren’t the sole source of dazzling color. The room was filled with flowering plants and fruit trees. Pots and planters covering most of the painted tile floor.
“My aunt calls it the Winter Garden. I thought you might enjoy it.”
Brontë stepped forward, tracing the spiked petal of a stargazer lily in full bloom. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Nor have I ever seen anyone quite like you.”
She shook her head at his romantic nonsense and wandered farther into the room, absorbing the vibrant sights and fragrant scents. Warmth and humidity closed in on her the further she explored, until she felt like she was in the tropics. Exploring the interior of Jamaica maybe. Brontë didn’t know, she’d never been. The thought was pure fantasy. As was this place. The splash of water reached her ears, like a playful tune and she hurried toward it. A massive marble fountain sat at the far end of the room, centered beneath a massive arched window depicting fairies in a lush garden.
“It’s from A Midsummer’s Night Dream,” Tris said from behind her, pointing over her shoulder. “The one with the purple flower is Puck. He makes a juice from the flower that makes people fall in love with the next person they see.”
“Oberon’s revenge,” Brontë said. “’The course of true love never did run smooth.’”
“You know Shakespeare?”
From years of going to and working in the theater, her familiarity was in depth to say the least. She shrugged. “Doesn’t everyone to some extent? And the fountain?”
The marble sculpture bordered on erotic. Naked lovers entwined together with nary a strategically placed fig leaf to cover anything. Not that the male had been endowed with much to conceal.
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