by Lara Temple
The candles were out and the table cleared, but the dying fire still cast a pleasant orange warmth about the room. But though she’d remembered her shawl slipping down the back of her seat, it was not there. Perhaps the servants had already taken it?
‘Oh, bother,’ she muttered again and went down on her knees to see if it slipped below the table.
‘Looking for this?’
Ellie straightened so abruptly she cracked her head against the table and gave a yelp of pain.
‘Blast, I’m sorry. Here, let me help you.’
‘I don’t need your help,’ Ellie growled through gritted teeth, rubbing the singing pain in her head. Chase took her elbow anyway and helped her up from her knees, his hand warm and firm, but surprisingly gentle against her skin. In his other hand he held her shawl and for some reason the sight of the neatly folded fabric almost swallowed in his big hand struck her harder than the blow to her head.
‘Ellie? I’m so sorry. Let me see...’ He turned her to him, just as gently, and she realised she was crying. She took the shawl from him and buried her face in it. But that wasn’t any better, it had caught his scent somehow, warm and deep, indefinable, but him. Even her shawl had given itself to him.
She tried to call herself to order. She was Eleanor Walsh; she could and would deal with anything.
Just not right now.
She waited for him to make his excuses and herd her out the door, but instead she felt his fingers touch her hair, gently tracing over it.
‘Where are you hurt, sweetheart? Is it very bad?’
‘No. It’s not my head.’ The words were muffled by the shawl and she pressed it harder against her eyes to stop the tears, dragging in a shaky breath.
Enough of this.
She scrubbed her eyes and sniffed and stepped back. She was grateful the firelight was so dim so he could not see what a mess she was, but she kept her head down none the less, staring at the contrast between his light-coloured vest and dark coat. ‘I’m sorry. That was foolish. Thank you for finding my shawl. Good night.’
‘Not very likely, by the sound of it. Come, you need some Dutch courage. And you need to stop trying to pull the wool over my eyes, Miss Eleanor Walsh.’
Ellie knew it was dreadfully improper to be here with him at all, even with the excuse of fetching her shawl. But to allow him to take her hand like a child and lead her to the small salon leading off the dining room where a more cheerful fire danced would surely count as depravity in Lady Ermintrude’s book. Despite his swift embrace by the stile, Ellie knew he was no threat to her virtue and not merely because of his mother. The thought that Chase Sinclair might find a frumpish spinster with her face red from crying attractive was ludicrous. She knew what he was doing and at the moment she didn’t have the strength to resist his tendency to find and rescue the sad castaways of life. So she allowed him to press her into an armchair by the fire as he pulled up another chair beside it and sat.
‘Drink.’
‘But Pruitt...’
‘Pruitt enjoys his early evenings as much as Aunt Ermy. The only one on attendance after dinner is my valet and he only comes if I ring for him. I do not need the offices of servants to pour my port or extract me from my boots and coat. Sit.’
It was hardly scandalous, but the mention of being extracted from his coat drew her attention to the breadth of his shoulders and she could not stop the thought of seeing him without his coat...without his shirt...
She focused on the glass he extended to her, still avoiding looking at him.
‘Drink,’ he said again. ‘It will help.’
She thought of her father, merry and charming at dinner when he arrived back from his travels those last couple of years. And then later in the evening—not so charming.
‘Not for long.’
His laugh was soft and ran through her like warm water climbing back into the pitcher. She shivered and he gave a little exclamation.
‘Just drink, Ellie. Trust me.’
I do, as much as anyone on earth, she realised with a burst of surprise and it woke her a little. She took the glass and sniffed at it suspiciously.
‘What is this? The smell doesn’t recommend it at all.’
‘Whisky. Huxley’s favourite, bless his fastidious if not always practical soul. It feels better than it either smells or tastes. Be brave, Ellie.’
Be brave.
That was the absolutely wrong thing to say. Ellie stared at the winking, sparkling glass of liquid amber and felt a peculiar crumbling, as if a shell she hadn’t even been aware of was pierced, the cracks snaking up and outwards, too fast for her to stop. She clenched her hands into her shawl, trying to stop it.
‘That’s all I ever am. I don’t want to be brave.’
‘Yes, I can see that. You’ll tell me why in a moment. But for now, take a sip.’
She laughed at his insistence, at her weakness, at everything, and took the glass. But she still sipped hesitantly which was probably for the best because even just allowing the liquid to slide against her lips and the tip of her tongue was a smoky, burning explosion. She gasped and drew away.
‘This cannot be healthy.’
He laughed and cupped his hand around hers, raising the cup back towards her mouth.
‘It has nothing to do with health, but with sanity. Try again, slowly. That’s right, don’t fight the burn, savour it.’
Savour it.
His hand was warm and large over hers, several shades darker than hers, the veins a faint bluish tint over the fine bones on the back of his hand and where the cuff pulled back she saw hint of silky dark hair and her mind crawled up his arm, peeling back crisp linen and dark-blue superfine.
She closed her eyes hard, but that was worse because the images lingered and expanded as liquid fire hit her tongue. It burned and danced and expanded like rising smoke, but she held all this inside her as if she was holding in her soul at a meeting with Mr Soames at the bank.
And just when she thought she might choke with it, it slid through her, painting her a fiery orange from the inside, like a flame inside a glass vase.
‘That’s right. Another, now.’
She didn’t argue. After the second swallow she felt her shoulders melt a little and she leaned back against the chair.
It was not done—leaning.
Proper young women sat straight, making as much use of the back of a chair as a sheep made of a quizzing glass.
After the third swallow she closed her eyes, exploring her body from within as the warm wave swept through her. Perhaps that’s why they called it spirits—it felt as though she’d swallowed one of the magical spirits from the Desert Boy books, perhaps one of Leila the Sprite’s magical friends—incorporeal but very real—and it was getting to know her from inside and she was merely following, discovering herself alongside it.
He took the glass from her and she missed the warmth of his hand on hers more than the whisky. She finally looked at him and for a moment she felt another shiver, but this time of awe. She kept forgetting how handsome he was. The face of a beautiful devil. Dark and sharp cut, too hard even for marble, which always looked a little soft and creamy. Granite, perhaps. Yes, a beautiful granite god.
‘Now, Ellie Walsh, tell me what is afoot.’
‘Afoot?’
‘What made you cry?’
She rubbed her head—it stung and there was even a bump.
‘I bumped my head.’ It sounded childish, even to her, and he smiled, which was not a good thing because that set off another wave of spirit heat as the whisky used her innards and veins as a race course.
‘I have a feeling bumped heads don’t usually defeat you, Ellie. I’m rather good at telling when something is rotten in the state of Denmark and, aside from Lady Ermintrude’s soul, something is definitely not quite right here. I trusted you with Huxley
’s letter—why can’t you trust me with your problem? I’m a decent confidant, you know. I won’t spill.’
She remembered Henry’s words about Chase the day he arrived and knew it was true. He might be a rake, but he was also much more than that.
‘Is this because of our conversation earlier? About Henry and Dru?’
She shook her head and his eyes narrowed and she saw the same calculation she’d seen from the first day.
‘Yet I saw you watching them again tonight. And you must have seen what I saw.’
‘What did you see, Mr Sinclair?’
The corner of his mouth rose a little at her defensive taunt.
‘I saw tension, confusion...and attraction. And then I looked at you and I saw... I’m not quite certain what I saw, but not what I would expect to see on the face of a woman engaged to be married and in love with her betrothed. And yet here you are, thoroughly miserable, and only stopping yourself from crying your heart out by sheer force of will. You are either a brilliant actress or...’
‘A liar.’
Oh, God, she’d said it. She squeezed the shawl harder, trying to stop the words.
‘This is such a mistake. I knew it the moment I said yes.’
He met her beseeching gaze with all the stillness of a wolf hovering just within reach of a sheep munching at a clump of clover. She felt the predatory force of his eyes, but even knowing she was falling into his trap she couldn’t, didn’t want to stop.
‘If I hadn’t been so desperate... But there’s no point. I have to tell Henry I cannot do this.’
‘Cannot marry him?’
‘No, not that. We never intended to marry. He was afraid Lady Ermintrude would try to entrap him into marrying Dru or Fen like she’d tried last time he was here.’
Something cracked through his façade. Confusion and a wariness that hadn’t been there before.
‘Do you mean Henry suggested you come with him to Huxley and act as his betrothed?’
‘Yes. His idea was that I would eventually jilt him and leave him inconsolable. He never intended to marry me at all.’
‘Miss Walsh. It has been an exceedingly long day...week...and I am also not at my best. Would you have me believe Henry asked you to act as his betrothed and then believed you would melt away when it suited him? Only an innocent fool would take such a step without knowing he was risking putting himself squarely in a parson’s mousetrap.’
That knocked some spirit into her and she leaned forward in anger.
‘He is not a fool and he knows I would never entrap him. I told him it was a terrible idea, but he convinced me and... I had my own reasons as well.’
His face went blank again.
‘And they were?’
She knotted her hands together in the shawl and looked away.
‘That is my business.’
‘I see. Did you think that coming here as his betrothed might convince him to make the sham a reality? Is that why you are so miserable now that you see he is falling in love with the very woman he was trying to avoid being forced to marry?’
What remained of the pleasant haze of the whisky was shoved back by the intensity of his attack. She tried to rally some answering anger, but felt only a deep emptiness and disappointment. She’d been wrong about him. For a moment she had felt she could trust him as he invited her to. She’d only made a fool of herself.
She stood, but he stood as well, blocking her passage between the chairs.
‘Wait, Ellie...’
‘No, get out of my way, you stupid, idiotic...clod.’
‘No. I didn’t mean to say it...that was a mistake.’
‘No, it was my mistake to tell you, to think I could trust you...’
‘You can trust me.’
‘Hah! I’d as soon trust Lady Ermintrude. At least she doesn’t coat her venom with sugar. She doesn’t ply her prey with whisky and...and armchairs and...things.’
Maybe the whisky was stronger than she’d realised because neither her anger nor her words were performing as expected. She just felt...miserable. She didn’t resist when he pressed her back into the armchair and again the words were tumbling out of her, because she needed him to understand.
‘You’re wrong. I’m not in love with Henry. He is like a little brother to me, even if he is a year older than I. He’s not like his father, you see. Oh, he is trustworthy and kind and he means well, but he doesn’t have Mr Whelford’s strength of character. And Arthur knew that about his son. He was quite ill at the end and we talked a great deal and though he knew Henry would one day be Lord Huxley because he said his brother would never marry again, that he was too deep in love with the woman he had lost to ever contemplate matrimony, he also hoped Huxley would live a long life because Henry still needed to grow up a great deal. And he asked me...if I would look out for him.’
Ellie pressed a hand to her throat. The memory of Arthur Whelford’s death was almost as bad as the death of her mother and that tiny baby a year earlier. He had been her final protection from the world. When he died she’d realised it was only her. It was all up to her.
‘I miss him so much. So very, very much.’
She hardly noticed when he shifted her and sat her down on his lap like a child. She leaned her forehead against the firm warmth of his neck and jaw and cried into her shawl.
* * *
He’d asked for this. He’d purposely gone after her defences, coaxed and pushed and even—though he hadn’t meant to—attacked.
He was despicable.
And he was paying for it.
He kept his breath as measured and calm as possible as she cried against him, but it was agony on too many levels. He wanted to breathe her in again, draw in that inexplicably seductive scent that the longer he was around her the less he could make comparisons to anything else but Ellie. It wasn’t like anything else and holding her wasn’t like holding any other woman.
She was trouble.
It was foolish to be glad she wasn’t in love with Henry and even more foolish to feel a wholly irrational jealousy towards a dead vicar. Chase hadn’t known Arthur Whelford well, but Huxley always called his brother ‘the archetype of a good man’.
Everyone loves Arthur, Huxley had said once. He’s such a good, reliable fellow they can’t help themselves.
Did she realise that though she wasn’t in love with Henry, she might very well have had serious feelings for his father? No wonder the poor girl was so miserable.
He let his head lean a little against the warmth of her hair, rubbing her arm gently through the worn muslin dress. She felt so frail, shaking like that as her crying subsided. But the body pressed so trustingly against him was a strong one—he could feel the firm lines of her upper arm, not those of a girl whose only exercise was the turning of La Belle Assemblée’s pages or flicking open her fan.
She was a study in contrasts. Conundrums had always been his weakness. Usually they appealed to his mind, but Ellie...
He took another deep breath of her and kept as still as possible as his body took that material and condemned him, gathering and rising to bear evidence against him. If this were a trial, he’d be on his way to the gallows now.
She might need comfort, but he needed distance.
‘Ellie,’ he whispered, shifting so he could press those words against her hair. It was warm and even silkier than it looked. God, he was going to suffer tonight. And served him right—he was bringing this on himself, but he couldn’t seem to put her away from him. It was such a contrast to her disgusted rejection when he carried her over the stile and he didn’t want the moment to end.
‘I’m so sorry.’ Her muffled response breathed warmth against his neck and he took another cautious breath.
‘Don’t be. This is perfectly sensible behaviour for an occultist. They are very sensitive to celestial vibrations and I h
ear Jupiter is in ascendance.’
A little quiver ran through her and she giggled. It was such a non-Ellie-ish response that his arms tighten around her despite himself.
‘Ellie. Don’t worry so. I will fix it.’
She straightened so quickly it was only his reflexes that stopped her from cracking her head again, this time on his chin.
‘You will not fix this. This is my problem.’
She fumbled out of his arms and he let her go and waited while she tidied herself.
‘I asked you for help with Huxley’s letter. Why do you find it so hard to do the same?’
‘That is different.’
‘How?’
She looked down at the mangled shawl.
‘It just is.’
‘Infallible logic.’
‘Not everything that makes sense can be explained.’
‘I dare say the incomparable Arthur Whelford would understand what that statement means.’
She finally looked at him and there was a stubborn curve to her lower lip, just hovering on the edge of a pout and making his life even more difficult.
‘Why do you dislike him so?’
‘I don’t dislike him; I hardly knew him. But I don’t think it is wise to idolise him as you do. Sometimes you have to accept help from less-than-perfect sources, Miss Walsh. Or pay the price for stubborn foolishness.’
‘I’m surprised you accepted help from someone as foolishly stubborn as I, then.’
‘You were still the pick of the litter around here.’
She gave an outraged gasp that ended in a ripple of laughter.
‘It is very ungallant to make me laugh when I am angry.’
‘You shouldn’t be surprised; we already established how unsuitable I am as knight errant. You already told me about Henry, would it be so awful to tell me the rest?’
‘You are like a dog with a bone.’ She sounded more weary than angry so he pressed his advantage.
‘Is it your family?’