Meet the Earl at Midnight

by Gina Conkle

  “At least you’ve mastered an art.” She batted the pillow against his encroaching thigh and laughed, a deep, sensual sound. “And how will I be able to tell when you’re truly listening and when you’re playing false with me?”

  “That’s my secret. Something you’ll have to figure out over the years to come.”

  As soon as he said that, her cheerful sparkle faded, and she looked away. The bottom edge of Lydia’s upper teeth showed on her lower lip, and her thick brows worked with what he guessed were myriad thoughts running rampant in her head.

  “That is one thing your mother and I have in common. I wish the same as her that you wouldn’t go.” She swiped away the messy lighter strands of hair that framed her face. The line of her mouth wobbled. “I don’t want to make you angry by saying that out loud. I cannot even explain it. I have no claim to you, but…”

  She shrugged and stared off into the fire. He wouldn’t fight her on that statement. He wished for the ease to continue, but he was a swimmer beyond his depth here on female emotions and wants. Silence hung between them, an awkward kind for him, though she appeared wistful and at ease. He cleared his throat and settled his hand atop his knee, all the closer to hers. The red-stained bandage on his thumb was a flair of color and, like a conversation lifeline, Edward showed her the appendage.

  “See what happened tonight?”

  She reached over, and her hands cradled his larger hand. “What did you do?”

  He welcomed the coddling touch.

  “Not a bad cut, but I was preparing seed pods for a friend of mine in Edinburgh, Dr. Finley. We share a lively correspondence on our work.” He shrugged off that explanation of a man she’d likely never meet. “I was so focused on getting things done that I tried to do the cutting at night, when I had no business doing so.” He inched closer. His head was very near hers. “The bark that grows on the tree from that seed cures rampantly bleeding wounds.”

  Her dark lashes fringed wide-open eyes.

  “Do you recall the other treatise that you’re copying for me? The one on the Agathosma betulina?”

  “Yes.” She nodded rapidly and glanced over at the desk. “I worked on it some today when I was feeling up to it.”

  “Good. I need that done and soon. That plant has curatives for the same kidney disease that claimed my father.” His hands cupped hers, and his voice lowered as he focused on her appendages.

  Her skin was soft, with a few small calluses, especially on the inner part of her thumb and index finger, where the wooden stem of her paintbrush rubbed the skin. He massaged her palm, making tender circles over white-pink flesh. The act rendered her speechless, but the small, dark space between her lips was closer.

  “Don’t you see? There are so many lives that could be saved. Families wouldn’t have to endure what mine faced.”

  She licked her soft lips, drawing his attention to her plush, lower lip. But she surprised him with a soft-voiced revelation of her own.

  “Your father, your brother…that’s what drives you,” she whispered. “The loss of them.”

  He nodded, his shoulders shifting against the back cushion. Lydia had just peeled back a layer that left him denuded, and like any man who found himself suddenly bared, the exposure was a new, uncomfortable thing. He needed grounding. He needed her. Their fingers, still moving from the desire to explore flesh, somehow became intertwined.

  “What started as youthful study and curiosity turned into something else long ago. I’d hear stable masters talk of applying poultices to a horse’s damaged fetlocks, and midwives discuss herbal remedies.” He shook his head and looked her in the eye. “Then much-vaunted physicians slit veins, bleeding patients as was done in medieval times.”

  “Sounds barbaric,” she agreed.

  She understood, and that lifted a burden from his shoulders.

  “And now you see why I must find better answers. I planned a six-month expedition along the western coast of Africa and was stunned by what I found. I brought back as many seeds, pods, and stripling plants, trees, and bushes as I could fit on the ship. By then, Jonathan and my father were dead. I admit I skulked away for that expedition while my mother still grieved.” He shook his head. “I had no business going then.”

  Her hand reached up and touched his scarred cheek. He froze. No one ever touched him there. The burned parts gave a slight haze of sensation and pressure, but the other scars gloried under her fingertips skimming his flesh, so hungry was he for touch—anywhere. Sublime pleasure stirred him in a straight arrow line to his loins. With his bulk leaning close, and her slender white hand stroking his hairline and feathering his cheekbones, he could be a beast calmed by a forest maiden, so still was he. Her index finger traced the skin next to his left eye.

  “I noticed this half-circle scar the first night at the Blue Cockerel and wondered about it.” Those fingers of hers skimmed the outer edge of his eyebrow and moved down his cheek again. “Was the countess angry?”

  “What?” He blinked.

  Her hand slid to his jacket. “Your mother,” she said, a smile playing about her lips. “She must’ve been beyond upset at your voyage.”

  “She was furious with me when I returned, the wounds notwithstanding. At the worst moments, I imagined the attack, my scars were a form of penance. I felt guilty about not doing a better job as head of the family…that promise I gave my father.” He winced at the memory. “He knew me far too well. Nor did it help matters with Jane in her flights of rebellion, but we all eventually recovered and found our footing.”

  Lydia’s hand grazed his coat at the opening, a slow trail down near his navel that teased him. Something in her dark green eyes told him she read him again.

  “You all have your own ways of adjusting to pressures.”

  “Even before things went bad, we did.” His voice went thick and slow. “Jon conformed, Jane rebelled, and I hid away in science.” His dry bark of laughter was in no way humorous. “And my mother adjusted in hers.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Edward shrugged that off and looked her in the eye. “More the point, do you understand?”

  With that quiet question, a slight distance filled in the space. They’d come full circle to his need to leave, to do, to accomplish much.

  “I think I do,” she ventured, tucking some hair behind her ear. “At least you’re not running off after treasures of gold and silver.”

  Her lips parted as if words wanted to spill forth, but she wasn’t altogether sure to release that dam. Edward nodded at her, wanting more of this intriguing intimacy.

  “Go ahead. We can, by now, be honest with each other. That’s something I’ve come to value about you.”

  As soon as he said that, her features tightened and her eyes half-closed, pinched and uneasy. Lydia let words pour out in a soft plea as her fingers slipped inside his coat.

  “Then why not stay and share what you’ve already learned with all and sundry? Support another scientist to go on the expedition, and you stay. Present your findings to the Royal Society.” She tugged on his shirt, finishing on a higher note.

  Her green eyes, lighter in color yet fathomless, searched him.

  “Edward, I’ve not simply copied your research, I’ve read it. What you’ve written is astounding. You could change so much.” Her head tipped in gentle amazement. “But you must present your findings in person, otherwise the words will lose their power and momentum. Isn’t it discourse, face-to-face communication that makes all the difference?”

  His lips tightened, as much because she spoke the truth as he didn’t want to hear that truth. Nor did he want to lose the connection building between them. He liked the subtle play of her fingers inside his jacket. But this time a new pull grabbed hold of him, one he wasn’t ready to name. He shook his head.

  “No. That’s why I need to get cuttings and seeds out to other scientists with the minds and the means of similar greenhouses. And the supply I have is few and fragile. I must find more to prove my
theories.” He looked her in the eye. “To do that, I have to go to other continents.”

  Her questing hand on his shirt froze. She removed it to the pillow’s neutral ground. The absence of her searching appendage left a void. They were at an impasse, the same as when he’d entered the room. This was an altogether different kind of barrier: they’d moved into new, deeper territory of intimacy and honesty. But the wall of differences remained, if not more entrenched.

  “Besides, I don’t relish going out into Society.” He pulled away, sitting up straighter. “Forgive me, but I thought you understood.”

  “Oh, Edward, I do, I do.” She inched closer to him across the cushion, the velvet wrapper loosening in her progress. “You’ll forgive me for wanting you to stay.”

  In moving toward him, her right leg unfolded from beneath her, and she stretched the limb toward him. The action wasn’t meant to seduce or attract, but he stared at her knee, shrouded by very thin linen pulled taut across that spot. The hearth’s fire brought to full relief the art of a woman’s limb…Lydia’s.

  Viewing with fascination that section of barely covered flesh, he smiled. Men could be so preoccupied with breasts and bottoms as to miss the delicate beauty of a woman’s pretty knee. Too many landscapes of curves and skin and not enough time to memorize them all.

  A small, dark mole dotted the center of her knee. He gave in to temptation, tracing the indents that bracketed her joint with thumb and forefinger. Her soft intake of breath from the gentle, unexpected caress was music to his ears, but her skin’s response snared him as much as that subtle sound. Visible waves of reaction pricked her skin, goose bumps under her threadbare night shift.

  Edward bent low and kissed the tiny mole. Her skin was warm under his mouth. He lingered over that spot, breathing in her scent and wanting to open his mouth wider and taste her. He spread his hand over her leg. His palm skimmed the back of her calf, down to her slender ankles, where he stroked the delicate shape.

  “You know, I also came here because I wanted to check on you. See for myself if you were well or not.” His voice was rough to his ears. “But I want to stay for very selfish reasons.”

  “You mean tonight?” Her head tipped with languorous invitation. “Or longer?”

  He chuckled, catching what she implied, and was not bothered that Lydia pushed him to stay in England.

  “Both.”

  Her dark green eyes widened at the admission. Strange, he wasn’t bothered that he wanted to stay—now or longer. Sex was a drug, and Lydia, his wife-to-be, was turning out to be a rich, enticing elixir. Isn’t that what he wanted? A congenial woman in his bed?

  He chuckled at that. Sitting close with his hand exploring forbidden flesh, Edward could easily give in to the lure before him.

  Most of his brain gave in to the mind-numbing sensual flood, forgoing rational thought, but somewhere in the growing haze, a section of his brain marched on, stridently reminding him of the facts: he’d be the worst kind of oaf to press her in her state of lethargy. He took a slow, deep breath, ready to dive in no matter the consequence. His hand encircled her ankle then slid along the straight line of her shin, snagging and dragging her shift higher. The act bared inches of smooth, fair leg above the ankle.

  If he kissed that bare skin, he would stay.

  Edward battled his urge, about to give in. And then he saw again her pallid face and the shadows under her eyes.

  His other hand reached up to her face, the same as that first night at the Blue Cockerel. His palm grazed her cheek, such fair, smooth skin, and his thumbs barely brushed her cheekbones. Lydia’s mouth opened, revealing that secret dark space between her lips that tempted him. His thumb traced her succulent lower lip, the wanton plushness needed testing.

  “I’d better leave before I do something foolish, like press myself on a woman in need of a good night’s sleep.” Or stay with you and never leave.

  His body protested the change of plans. Edward rose from the settee and winced. He adjusted his breeches from the pressure building at the placket. He faced the fire, not willing that she see the effect a little tenderness and intimacy had on him. Of course she likely knew; his Lydia was no babe in the woods.

  He moved closer to the hearth to collect himself, all while planning to tend the mellow fire. Edward crouched down, his legs spread wide to give more space in his breeches. He settled another log on the iron grate and stared, hypnotized by the dancing orange and yellow flames. Coming here tonight, he played with a deadlier fire.

  And why this sudden need to be honorable with a woman of some experience? A woman he’d wed and bed soon enough? Edward’s loins clenched with deep ache, snapping him out of his haze. He flinched and a hoarse, dry chuckle escaped him. Gingerly, he stood up and jammed his hands in his coat pockets. When he faced Lydia, she tucked the night-robe about her legs, looking long in the mouth. Never had he seen so forlorn a face.

  “You will take yourself off to bed, won’t you?” he asked, not trusting himself to help her with that task.

  “Yes.” She gave the barest nod.

  “You understand…my leaving?”

  “As long as you understand my desire that you stay.” Forever.

  Sad, dark-lashed eyes had some kind of power over him. The emotion in her limpid green gaze reached inside him. The wanting pummeled his gut from loss and denial.

  “Good night, Lydia.”

  Edward retreated to his room before he caved into temptation and never left. The air shrouded him with cool emptiness. His mind moved, but not racing with its usual speed of thought. Somehow his feet led him to his study, where he sat at his desk and propped his boots on the desktop. Tonight, even his treasured books held no allure.

  ***

  As the clock struck midnight…

  Edward grabbed a candelabrum from a hall table, and in a fog of tiredness, strode to the ballroom. His bootsteps echoed in the cavernous spaces. All were abed in the house when he pushed the ballroom’s double doors wide. He honed in on the makeshift art studio and held the flickering candles at shoulder height, unwrapping one burlap painting after another. He needed to know, to understand.

  Perhaps his diminished state of exhaustion opened him, a physical weakening that affected his soul. This past year, no, these past three years had been hard. Maybe the entrancing connection he’d made with the woman upstairs, the first of its kind, opened channels he’d left solidly dammed. But his body was loose-jointed and free, ready to accept, to feel, what came his way. A novel notion to be sure.

  What was it Lydia said? Something about letting his feelings respond to what he saw. He let himself see, all right. He chuckled dryly again. No, this wasn’t an exact science. This went far beyond his realm of comfort, but he’d let come what may and not try to analyze it. Some habits, though, didn’t fade away from one lesson, he decided, when gaining an inkling of victory over one piece and another.

  “Let’s see what you wish to tell me,” he said aloud, pulling burlap from paintings, “or should I say ‘what you wish to tell the world’?”

  Lydia had painted proper English landscapes, two of them. Not eye-catching at all. Though of reputable quality and excellent images, nothing that stirred the soul. They could be like everyday women in sturdy English morning dresses: you’d know something covered a wall, but it didn’t dress it.

  Then she became more interesting by going outside the lines of acceptable subjects. Her smaller painting featured a country maid, her breast half-bare as she nursed her babe in a kitchen.

  The image would not grace the wall of any grand English drawing room, but the painting, excellent and appeasing to the eye, tore back the curtain of formal veneer. Intimacy, of the deep and trusting kind, struck him with awe. Lydia had captured love and tenderness, yet the mother looked facedown at her swaddled child. There was no eye contact of the subject with the viewer.

  Could one even say an art piece looks back at the viewer? The mesmerizing image rattled him.

  How did Lydi
a do that?

  He glanced at the lone easel. That square hidden under cloth called to him.

  He walked briskly to that covered easel and tore back the cloth cover, revealing the small canvas square that vexed him most. The cover bunched in his left hand and draped to the floor like a woman’s skirts.

  The Chinese Pear Tree. The piece played with his insides, luring him.

  “Art,” he said under his breath. “What am I not seeing?”

  Lydia’s words from the other day still stung. Her instruction harangued him. This was his third time coming back to view this piece since that meeting. The first time he snuck away for a perfunctory few minutes, staring at several paintings in the family art gallery, staring at family portraits, and then viewing some of the famous pieces, but ending with this one. Seeking to examine art in different lights, he found himself going back to a few that he liked. The second time, viewing the work in daylight hours, availed nothing new.

  Each time he ended face-to-face with The Chinese Pear Tree. Why?

  Edward raised the candelabrum higher, squinted at the painting, and exhaled his exasperation. After victory with the painting of the mother and babe, why couldn’t he see this one? Enough.

  “I’m going to bed,” he said, growling the words.

  Just as he turned, candlelight flickered, and shadows flitted across the tree. The action tricked the eye, as if the tree moved. He jerked from the strange perception and squinted again. The cover cloth dropped to the ground. He hoisted the candelabrum higher. There. The half-hidden fruit, waiting like a woman dancing in the shadows. He touched stiff, dried paint.

  The play of light drew his attention to the hidden fruit. Words poured from his lips.

  “Lines…less distinct…a specter of an object, shapes…rather than definitive lines showing completion.” He took two more steps back. “That’s why I think it’s unfinished. Only the forefront has thin, completed lines. The fruit appears whole, yet—”