For the Earl's Pleasure

by Anne Mallory

  Something passed over his body, and the next thing he knew, he was staring at a dark paneled wall.

  He crouched and rotated, searching for threats. The interior of the mahogany and gold-encrusted study came into focus. A memory of his grandfather filling ledgers with numbers and ordering men to his bidding flickered through his head, then fled down the waterfall.

  Two men strode through the door. “I don’t need this now, Reston. You promised it would be done. And we can’t meet here.” Gregory Penshard threw something on the desk. Valerian’s father would have his head for the treatment.

  “And so it is. The doctor wishes to conduct more experiments. You don’t escape from the doctor.” The other man, unfamiliar to Valerian with his dirty blond hair and muddy brown eyes, spread his hands.

  “Yes, but closure is more important.”

  “And closure you will have.” The unfamiliar man suddenly went from conciliatory to threatening. “We provide a service. You pay the fee. Do you want to take it up with the doctor? Make a visit yourself? Provide a target for wagging tongues to ask questions?”

  Penshard’s lips tightened and Valerian could see his distant cousin’s hands turn white. “No. Just see that it’s done.”

  A crooked-toothed smile ringed the blonde’s mouth and he looked affable once again. “Excellent. I will take this nice draft and be on my way.” He tipped an imaginary hat. “Your lordship.”

  Penshard’s tightly clenched lips fully disappeared from view. As soon as the other man exited, he swiped a hand along the desk, scattering the papers.

  His father would have his distant nephew’s ballocks in a vice for that. And for presuming a title when he had none.

  Valerian had never liked Penshard. That he had somehow wormed his way into Abigail Smart’s good graces just made him more irritating.

  “Fool,” Valerian said scathingly. “What the devil do you think—”

  But Penshard strode from the room as if Valerian weren’t there. The shock at being ignored once again turned into something much closer to unease.

  How had he entered the room without using the door anyway? He turned and stared at the wall behind him. It connected to the ballroom, from where he’d just come.

  He put a tentative hand against the wall and felt it give way. He stumbled through to the other side.

  For everything that was holy and wise…he stared into the crowded ballroom as a man passed right through him.

  “I say, Norton, damn breezy in here,” the man said to his companion as they maneuvered the edge of the crowd.

  Valerian stared at his fingers, then at the rest of his body. A sharp look verified that everyone else seemed quite capable of touching each other—couples embraced on the dance floor, a flirtatious tap with a fan, a warm shake of a hand.

  He…he was the odd one. He wasn’t…real.

  The orchestra played a cacophony of notes and jarring chords, the high-pitched cackles of the matrons, silly giggles and whimpers of the girls, the crowing of the men—Valerian lifted his hands to his ears, only slightly reassured that he could touch himself.

  What had happened to him? He tried vainly to remember, but events and memories started to slip and whirl faster, flowing into a miasmic whirlpool, sucking him in, drowning conscious thought in the rushing tide.

  He frantically tried to grasp hold of the important ones, his eyes desperately searching for an escape.

  And that’s when they met a brilliant blue pair watching him from across the crowded room.

  Abigail watched in shock as Rainewood appeared suddenly, completely out of sorts, on the other side of the ballroom.

  And was he wearing the same clothing from two nights past? Yes, definitely. When it came to Rainewood, her memory was chisel-sharp.

  Where had he popped in from? A forty-eight-hour binge of women and alcohol, no doubt.

  His eyes caught hers and held much too long. There was something primal and unfocused in his dark eyes. Then he started toward her. Her thoughts straightened and her attention strengthened as she prepared for war. He never approached her in full view of the ton, save for the incident two days past. Why would he now be heading her way as if hell-bent on a personal vendetta? Had she finally pushed him over the edge?

  She paused suddenly as her mother’s face caught in her periphery. No matter what his desire, Rainewood wouldn’t taunt her in front of the elders, not even her social-climbing mother.

  She took a deep breath, ready to face whatever it was head on, as she watched his tall broad-shouldered frame advance through the ballroom, the careless gleam in his eyes gone for once, his usually perfectly groomed hair messy and rakish.

  He was advancing on her with remarkable speed, the usual path that flowed around him even more accommodating. And then suddenly, she watched one of the matrons pass right through him.

  Her heart stopped beating.

  “Miss Smart?”

  Dear God.

  She shook her head to clear it. Surely she had been mistaken…

  Rainewood passed through two men without breaking stride, without a single pause. His eyes glittered and her hand rose without direct consent to her lips.

  “Miss Smart?”

  Panic licked her spine and she jerked her eyes from the terrible sight to concentrate on Mr. Farnswourth. “Yes, Mr. Farnswourth?” She wiped suddenly moist and clammy hands on her dress and tried to catch her breath.

  “I say, are you well?”

  Her mother was looking at her sharply and Abigail pasted on a smile—the hundredth such time she had done so tonight—but much, much more strained than ever before. She tried to ignore the man, ghost, oh god, striding her way. “I am, thank you. You were saying a—. About the musicale next week?”

  Dead, dead, dead. The word continued on an infinite loop. Speculation about where he had been for the past two days froze, cracked, then shattered in her head. Surely she had been mistaken. Valerian—no, Rainewood, she corrected—wasn’t dead. She had seen something, somebody, anything, else.

  She refused to turn her head to look again. To confirm the bone-deep certainty that she would never mistake Rainewood for anyone else.

  “Oh, yes, jolly good time it should be,” Mr. Farnswourth said. “My cousin is quite proficient at the pianoforte. I would most enjoy—”

  “You can see me.” That familiar silky, deep, masculine voice said at her elbow. Her eyes tightened. Nothing there, no one there. A figment of her imagination. She would not look.

  “—if you would join me,” Mr. Farnswourth finished.

  A tall, darkly dressed man moved into her vision. Stood before her, dark eyes piercing. “You can see me,” he repeated forcefully.

  Her lips parted and her brain froze. Rainewood was standing there, caught in the circle of the surrounding bodies; he had just spoken, and no one had noticed. She closed her eyes and inhaled a shaky breath, then took another.

  A tingle brushed down her arm in a parody of his usual taunting touch, and a profound shiver followed in its wake. Not the usual maddening shiver he produced in her, but one equally as unnerving.

  She hesitated a second too long over the feeling. She had to pull her thoughts together.

  If she ignored the situation, maybe she would wake to find it the day after the Malcolm’s fete and nothing out of the ordinary. “Mr. Farnswourth, that would be superb.”

  “Most excellent. I was just saying to Father the other day, Father, don’t you think we should—”

  Rainewood circled her. “Talk to me, Smart,” the commanding, sensual voice said against her ear. “I know the look in a woman’s eye when she has noticed me, I know the look in your eye when you’ve seen me, and you possessed just such a gaze.”

  She shivered again, but not from a touch this time. She sneaked a quick look to her right, and her eyes met shocked dark golden brown.

  “You can see me. And you can hear me.” His voice darkened and intensified. Repeated tingles ran through her as he tried to connect his hand
to her body. “What madness is this? What have you wrought against me? Why can’t I touch you? Why can’t I touch anyone?”

  Unable to stand the stirrings of panic in his voice, she glanced away, her eyes moving toward the couple copulating in the corner. Her color automatically rose.

  “I did nothing,” she blurted, flustered. “And it’s not possible. The laws prohibit it.”

  “That is exactly what I said!” She jolted to see Mr. Farnswourth nodding eagerly at her response. Sheer dumb luck had her answer to Rainewood in agreement with whatever Mr. Farnswourth had said.

  Luckily her mother was chatting with another lady in their carved-out space and was not paying attention. If she had been, her mother would know her infirmity was back. Not that it had ever disappeared, no matter what Abigail had pleaded and assured them of. Her mother would know. She’d call Dr. Myers to sort her out again.

  Everything in Abigail shuddered, and she tried to block Rainewood from view.

  “It isn’t against the law to touch someone,” he said. “And no one else can see me. I’m invisible. Why can you see me?”

  At any other time she might have responded with something along the lines of how he deserved to be invisible for once, but she was too numb. First, that he was dead. Secondly, that he even remembered her postmortem. Spirits almost never took notice of anyone who didn’t directly affect their environment.

  Unless…unless he was like…Lightning ran down her spine and she smothered the thought. Only two spirits had reacted similarly to her and both situations had ended badly.

  She tried to concentrate on Mr. Farnswourth, a proper beau, one who would make her mother proud. A man with whom she could have a nice, unfettered life, free from the threats of being sent away, and freed from desires that could never be.

  “Why don’t the counselors see it, do you suppose?” Mr. Farnswourth asked, completely oblivious to her distress.

  “Tell me why I can’t touch you or anything else, Smart. Answer me.” A ghostly hand traveled over the bare flesh of her arm, making every hair stand at attention. “Why are you the only one who can see and hear me?” Rainewood demanded.

  If there was one thing she knew about Valerian Danforth, now Lord Rainewood, it seemed even in death, he would stubbornly try to beat her down until she admitted defeat. She tried to answer him while not cluing Mr. Farnswourth into the fact that she was two pence shy of a full pound. “It—it is a consequence of living, I’m afraid. That we are made to see that which is for mortal eyes alone. And those outside of the system often do not have the same advantages.”

  “Living? What the devil do you mean?” Rainewood’s voice lowered and took on a much deadlier tone.

  “The judicial system is in place for a reason, Miss Smart,” Mr. Farnswourth said cautiously, as if she were sane and answering him instead of speaking to a dead man at their side.

  “Yes, but that hardly helps when one dies.” She looked directly at Rainewood.

  His face froze. “Dead? I’m not dead. This is just a bizarre dream.”

  “That is quite morbid, Miss Smart,” Mr. Farnswourth said, sounding slightly unnerved. “But I take your meaning. The good minister said just the other day—”

  She let Mr. Farnswourth natter on while she carefully observed the changing expressions on Rainewood’s face.

  “Never,” he said dismissively, though his jaw moved as if it took effort to do so. “This is more of your hokey talk.”

  She bit her lip and shook her head woodenly.

  Anger suffused his face. Rainewood channeled all feelings he couldn’t deal with into anger—he always had. “Stop this. Whatever this is. You are mad.”

  She swallowed around the stone columns of her throat. It was as if the hurt would never heal. She heard the echo of a long summer past—You are mad. Never speak to me again.

  She nodded tightly and concentrated on Mr. Farnswourth. Perhaps if she concentrated hard enough, she would wake up to a more pleasant day.

  Mr. Farnswourth’s lips moved as he actively nodded along with whatever he was saying. A life with Mr. Farnswourth—or Mr. Sourting. Thirty long years of comfort and sweet boredom. She could run a home of her own. Start fresh with servants who didn’t think she was eleven shy of a dozen.

  She could evade the constant threat of being sent there.

  Her mother would be pleased. Perhaps she would even embrace her at the wedding. She could banish all of her abnormal qualities with a fresh start.

  All in all, Farnswourth was a decent prospect, not too high on the instep, no one with whom she could taunt Rainewood…she briefly shut her eyes against the thought of him…but a solid husband, and she should be cultivating the opportunity of his suit instead of—

  “This is ridiculous. You will tell me how to get out of this nightmare,” the dark voice said, now with a hint of a bitter whiskey. “Come with me. Now.”

  —instead of thinking of a man who had ridiculed and crushed her and was now far beyond her help.

  “No.”

  “Pardon me?” Mr. Farnswourth gave her a quizzical glance.

  She smiled as brightly as her turmoil would allow. “Would you care to take a walk around the room, Mr. Farnswourth?”

  He puffed out his chest. “Of course, Miss Smart.” He held out an arm and she gratefully took it, keeping her gaze away from Rainewood.

  She kept her fingers loose on his sleeve, fighting the instincts that screamed for skin-to-skin contact, especially now in the face of Rainewood’s demise.

  Although the balls and routs and endless gatherings were tiresome in their consistency, she always had a chance to dance with men on the lower end of the social scale. She could brush by people in the crowd. She could accept the hand of someone new to meet. There was always a chance for physical contact when she went out. It was the only thing that kept her involved in the marriage game.

  Mr. Farnswourth maintained a steady dialogue that allowed her to nod continuously while keeping contact with his sleeve.

  Rainewood shadowed them, striding through people apace, leaving people shaking and shivering in his wake.

  “Come with me, Smart.” That horribly demanding voice was closer, more insistent, just behind her ear, the tenor of it raising the hairs at her neck and sending shivers down her spine. Shivers changed in substance, but that had been ever present companions around him since she had turned thirteen. Since everything had changed.

  Anger suffused her from multiple directions—Rainewood’s behavior, past and present, and her own.

  “For years you have ridiculed me about this exact type of behavior you are demanding,” she said as quietly and scathingly as she could from the side of her mouth while Farnswourth nattered on, oblivious. “Deal with this on your own.”

  Valerian fumed as he watched her take another turn about the room, then two. He had always known that she liked to walk with people and touch them. He had used the knowledge too often against her. Just the feel of her skin beneath his fingers, always shivering a bit, as she visibly fought with herself to lean in for more, made him hard. Made him irritated with anyone seeking the same. Made him angry at his own reactions.

  He tried speaking to everyone he knew in the room. He tried Abigail’s friends, thinking that perhaps they were in on the secret. He even tried Penshard—surely the man would smile evilly if he knew.

  Nothing.

  It was as if…as if what she had begged him to understand years ago had merit. No. Never. That would mean he had been wrong. It wasn’t possible.

  Ghosts. He wiped the thought away. He’d never believed her. Had used her words to taunt her, to hide the past hurt. He wouldn’t believe her now.

  A movement of blue caught his attention. He was so used to keeping an eye out for her, that it was nearly second nature. She moved away from her new beaus. Finally. If only he was able to interact with the others in the ballroom. The hell he would generate for her attendance to those two…

  Piled dark hair atop a blue dress—
he’d know that neck anywhere—followed an even shorter, more energetic form to the door.

  To the door?

  An emotion that felt uncomfortably close to panic washed through him. Abigail was leaving. His only source of information and sanity was walking right out the door.

  He bounded after her as she crossed the threshold. He tried to skirt around bodies at first, then closed his eyes, gave up the notion that he had to skirt around others, and strode through the throng. Through Aidan Campbell, Mr. Farnswourth, Celeste Malcolm. Through anyone who crossed his path.

  Just a nightmare. A simple nightmare. As soon as he caught Abigail Smart, he’d wake up. He was sure of it.

  He made it to the door just as the footman opened it again—and smacked right into something solid. The solid feel of hitting something sent a thrill through him. Perhaps he was already waking. But no, people continued to pass through him, and he could not follow in their wake.

  He reached out a hand to the open space between the door and its frame on the other side. Solid air. He swallowed. Rainewoods didn’t panic. He pushed against the barrier. Nothing. It was as if something was seeking to keep him trapped inside.

  More guests passed through him, and he gave an involuntary shiver at the disquieting thought of it all. He looked up in time to see Abigail enter a carriage in the drive. He needed to be in that carriage.

  He backed up and ran toward the door. A shock reverberated through him as he bounced back. How that could be so, he didn’t know, since he was otherwise not even physically present.

  The carriage started to roll down the drive.

  He pushed against the barrier with all his might and thought of blue eyes and shining chestnut hair. More than anything he needed her to tell him what was happening. More than anything he knew that she was his link to the truth. More than anything he wanted to be in the carriage with her.

  And all of a sudden he was.

  Chapter 4

  “Continue to encourage Mr. Farnswourth,” Mrs. Browning said in her usual bossy fashion. “Mr. Sourting as well. Given favorable circumstances and due diligence, you will be married by the end of the season. Both are solid choices.”