Clockwork Countess

by Delphine

  Of course he was referring the mad romp in the coach. It was to his credit that he apologized. Then why should a surge of disappointment run though her. Utter foolishness!

  “Thank you, Roderick,” she glanced at Claire, who was busy arranging Rowan’s new wardrobe in the armoire across the room. “I appreciate your…” she bit her lip, damn it all, she wasn’t used to such formality.

  But he was already stepping into the dark hall. “Right, then I shall see you at dinner!”

  And before she could say anything further, the door was closed and she was left standing before a king’s ransom of jewels with an oddly unsatisfied knot at the pit of her stomach.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The ticking of the ormolu clock on the sideboard punctuated the silence of dinner as the countess picked at her courses with delicate distain. Roderick glowered over his own untouched food and Edmund, giving barely any pretense of eating at all, nodded for the ancient butler to refill his glass of claret.

  Rowan was not so picky. It had been a long time since she’d had food this plentiful and of such fine quality. She scraped her plates, eating with relish, despite the countess’s icy stare.

  “I see you are enjoying your croquettes.” The countess gave a thin smile. “Cook will be pleased.” She coolly regarded the diners around the table. “You see I have such a small appetite myself, and Edmund would prefer to drink his dinner, while Roderick merely glowers and looks disagreeable.”

  Placing her fork carefully down, Rowan turned to the countess. “What you take for granted, many would be so grateful to have, my lady.”

  Rowan thought back to all the times she had forgone her own meal so that her sick father might eat, towards the end, when the money had run out.

  Compassion written across his face, Roderick assured her, “You needn’t worry about that any longer.”

  “So your father left you that destitute? I had not realized. He was, after all, rather famous in his prime, was he not?” The countess watched Rowan with vacant, yet oddly fascinated eyes.

  Roderick put down his knife with a sharp clang. “I’m sure Rowan's father did the best he could for her. Everyone knows how unpredictable the theater is. One can hardly expect him to have left Rowan with a coach and four, and a hundred thousand a year.”

  Unmoved by her son’s outburst, the countess turned her steel-gray eyes back on Rowan. And what did you do to amuse yourself while your father was about his business?”

  Edmund muttered something that sounded lewd behind his claret glass but it was too jumbled and low to be understood.

  Rowan sat a little straighter. She would not let these people intimidate her. “I amused myself by reading. Books have always been my great friends. I was so often left alone in my father’s dressing room, or during rehearsals backstage. I think I should have been very lonely without my books to keep me company.”

  “A bluestocking! On top of it all,” Edmund slurred.

  “There is a new century on the horizon and women are advancing in their education,” Rowan said, defensively. “I hope sometime soon, it will be thought an asset, and not a liability, for a young lady to be well read and have an educated mind.”

  “And what are you reading now?” inquired the countess.

  “It’s by a woman author, named Mary Shelly, called Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus.”

  Edmund gave a bitter laugh and turned jeering eyes on his brother, who had suddenly gone quite pale in the flickering candlelight. “Do you hear that, Roderick?” he knocked back another gulp of claret and turned to Rowan. “If you enjoy such fictions, I’m sure you will find Heartwycke most interesting–"

  “That’s enough Edmond,” growled Roderick.

  The two brothers stared at one another for a moment, before Edmund looked away and tried to take another swig from his empty wine glass. He motioned for the butler to refill it, but Roderick waved the servant away.

  “I think you’ve drunk your fill.”

  Edmund tossed his napkin to the floor and rose, his hand gripping the back of the chair to keep his balance. “Who are you to give me orders? I’m the earl, not you!”

  Roderick quietly rose from his seat too, glowering at his brother, but obviously doing his best to reign in his temper. “Should not the Earl of Heartwycke have been in the village this morning? Did you know that one of our tenant’s houses burned last night and their family has been left destitute? Were you there today to find them shelter and food? To help the man plan for some way of earning a living now that his shop is destroyed?”

  Edmund’s eyes narrowed. “What business is it of ours what the tenants do, as long as they pay their rent on time?"

  Roderick strode forward, and for a moment, Rowan thought he might strike his brother, but balling his fists at his side instead, he snarled, “Heartwycke Village, and all our tenants, are our responsibility. With the wealth and privilege we have been granted comes an obligation to care for the people who depend on us and our estate!”

  “Well, perhaps when I possess all that wealth and privilege I will give a damn! In the meanwhile, let them go to the Devil!” shouted Edmund. “And my you go to!”

  Edmund clumsily pushed past Roderick, who had turned his face away. He paused at the door. “If I can’t have a drink in my own house, I can certainly find one in town!”

  Roderick turned fiercely on his brother. “Off to your gaming hells?”

  “What if I am? Can’t a man spend an hour of diversion without being lectured at by his younger siblings?”

  Roderick strode to the doorway and took his limp brother by the lapels, his voice almost a whisper but full of warning. “The estate shall not cover your gambling debts any longer. Whatever you lose is on your own head to come up with.”

  “You can’t tell me what to do,” whimpered Edmund and pure hatred distorted what could have been such a pleasing face.

  Roderick released him and Edmund stumbled out of the room.

  Rowan turned to the countess, but she merely watched them all with interest, as if they were a theatrical performance and she was eager to discover the plot twist in the story. No trace of maternal concern warmed her being. Rowan shivered, it seemed almost inhuman.

  Resuming his seat, Roderick bowed his head, pressing his palms to his eyes for a moment. Rowan restrained an impulse to place her palm gently on the back of his neck in a soothing gesture.

  As if sensing her thoughts, he looked up, straight into her eyes. His expression was heart-wrenching. “I’m terribly sorry for what you just witnessed, Rowan.” He shook his head and turned away. “You must think us beasts.”

  Before she could answer, the countess rose, elegantly placing her napkin down and smiled a chilling smile. “Rowan, I think we shall withdraw and leave Roderick to his port.”

  With a rustle of silk, Rowan rose too, and nodding her head at Roderick, accompanied the countess out.

  As they sat in the pale blue damask salon, the countess poured tea with all the delicate precision of a Swiss clock and with that same unsettling, detached manner questioned Rowan on every aspect of her life, until she felt like a laboratory rodent under the lens of the new illuminated microscopes being used at the more advanced universities.

  The porcelain clock on the mantle chimed ten times and a servant discreetly entered the parlor, offering Roderick’s regrets that he would not be joining them. Rowan felt a stab of disappointment, but said nothing, and the countess at last released Rowan from her inquires, suggesting that it was time for bed.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The firelight was dying away, and shadows leaped across the gothic wood paneled library as Roderick sat bleakly poking at the embers. He was a coward to have hidden from Rowan tonight, but dear God, what was he supposed to do?

  He tossed down the fire iron and stared moodily at the licking flames. He had known it was a blasted foolish idea for Rowan to come to Heartwycke in the first place, but his mother had insisted, her curiosity so peaked too see the aristocrat
’s daughter who had been raised in the gutter. He should have found a way to take Rowan directly to their townhouse in London and arranged some kind of chaperone for her there.

  He would have if he had known....

  The image of Rowan standing in the swirling steam at the depot, her face so pale and vulnerable, the tears brimming in those startling green eyes had awakened something in him. He had not expected to feel a wave of protectiveness. To have the overwhelming desire to take her in his arms and tell her he would make it all better, no matter how deep her heartache, no matter how wretched things had been. How could he have predicted he would feel that way about a woman he had never met before?

  And then in the carriage, what on earth had come over him?

  Lust certainly. A hot burning passion that had swept through him like an inferno. But there had been more. When he looked into her eyes in the dark swaying carriage, he had seen a friend, felt a kinship, a longing for something he could not name. It was that unnamed longing, that feeling of utter rightness with her, that had drawn him to those wonderfully full lips of hers and he had almost....

  Roderick cursed, rising abruptly, and marched to the window, yanking the burgundy velvet drapes open. Thick flakes of snow were beginning to drift down on the parkland below. He pressed his forehead to the leaded glass pane.

  He had almost ruined her.

  And she had come here seeking their protection. They were supposed to be putting the chit on the damned marriage market when the Season began and he had almost destroyed her only chance of making a decent life for herself.

  The sound of the heavy door opening made him turn. Rowan stood in the doorway. She didn’t see him almost hidden behind the curtains. As she drew closer to the fire, he noticed how pale she was, the strain and sadness written across her face. Again the inexplicable urge to take her in his arms and run his hands through that glorious mane of bright curls, soothing her, letting her know he was here, tugged at him. He gritted his teeth and stepped from his hiding place.

  “Looking for a good book?” Roderick did his best to keep his voice light.

  She started and took a few steps back. “I’m sorry, I did not mean to disturb you.”

  “Please, you mustn't leave on my account. I want you to feel at leisure to use every part of the house as your own.”

  She arched a brow. “Except the tower?”

  The bloody tower. He’d like to tear it down stone by stone! “Yes, except the tower.” Roderick moved to her side and inhaled the warm summer scent of jasmine and tuberose. “But the library has many good books that are completely at your disposal.”

  “You do not think I am a shameful bluestockings?” she teased.

  Her impish grin made her look like a mischievous pixie and he couldn’t help smiling himself. “At the university there was much talk of ladies and education. I believe knowledge is something to be shared by all.” His smiled dimmed. “And if my brother and I are any example, men are not of such superior mind.”

  “But you built that marvelous clockwork gate and taught at Oxford,” she protested. “One can hardly have a passion for science and be such a dullard.”

  Roderick shook his head, all the pain of his horrible mistake cutting through him anew. A mistake Rowan must never know of. “I will not involve myself in science again. What is the saying? ‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing?’ I’m afraid I do not have the wisdom that must accompany such intellectual knowledge.”

  She shook her head, a frown creasing her brow. “But surely if one has such a capacity, one can acquire the wisdom–"

  Before he could think, he put a finger to those wonderful lush lips, to silence her. Rowan's eyes went very wide and her warm mouth trembled beneath his touch.

  He pulled his hand away abruptly and turned to march down the line of timeworn leather bound books. “I believe you were searching for something to read? Perhaps a touch lighter than Mrs. Shelly?”

  Rowan nodded. “Yes, I’m afraid Frankenstein will give me nightmares while I am….” she trailed off, dropping her eyes to the floor.

  Roderick gave a tight smile and finished her sentence. “Here in this gloomy fortress of ours.” If only she knew the truth.

  He pulled a volume from the shelves and handed it to her. “Perhaps Miss Alcott, as you enjoy feminine authors? I have been told Little Women is an excellent American novel.”

  Rowan accepted the book, but her gaze was arrested by an ancient looking tome, The Complete Works of Shakespeare. That sad, vulnerable look came into her eyes once more as she reached up to run her hand lovingly along the book’s spine.

  She was thinking of her father.

  Roderick came to her side. “I saw him perform once, you know. It was Macbeth. He was in the title role, of course. I was quite captivated by his performance.”

  Her lips began to tremble and fat tears slipped down her cheeks as Rowan turned to him, her naked heartbreak written across her face. “I miss him…” she pressed her hand to lips and gulped down a sob, ‘I miss him so dreadfully.”

  Before he realize what he was doing, Roderick pulled her into his embrace, tucking her head against his broad shoulder, cradling her close against him, his lips pressed to her copper tresses, as he murmured, “It will pass in time. You will always love him, always remember, but the pain will pass.”

  The sound of his gentle tones seemed to release something in her. She let out a long wracking sob and her chest began to heave, her back shuddering beneath his comforting hands. He just held her as she cried. Letting her know she was safe, he was there, she was not alone.

  When her sobs had subsided, she broke away, looking up at him with flushed cheeks, the tears still clinging to her lashes. “Forgive me,” she said, “I...I can not imagine what I was thinking.”

  Rowan took another step back towards the door as she wiped away a stray tear with the back of her hand. “I should retire for the night.”

  Of course she was right. He should let her go. “Here, you forgot your book.” He held out the novel and she stepped hesitantly forward to accept it.

  Pulling his handkerchief from his pocket, he tenderly wiped her tearstained face and brushed a stray curl behind her ear, then reluctantly let his hand fall to his side. She was standing so close, her eyes burning emerald green after the storm of tears, her full breasts still heaving slightly in the exposing evening gown.

  The air changed around them, he could feel it like a magnet’s pull. Desire welled in her eyes now instead of tears. She bit her succulent lower lip. The fire popped a rain of sparks as he reached out for her and again that inevitable draw which had brought them together in the carriage worked its sensual magic, his hands closing around her waist as Rowan melted against him. Little Women slipped from her fingers and fell unheeded onto the soft Turkish carpet.

  Her lips parted, her straining breasts pressing against his chest and Roderick claimed her with a kiss as searing as a brand, filling her with his heat, this unbidden desire that washed through him like a tide of fire. Her response was as raw and passionate as his own, her lips and tongue melting in the heat with him.

  The intoxicating scent of her jasmine and rose perfume, and feel of her velvet tongue against his, sent him into oblivion. He ran his hand up her waist until his fingers reached the generous swell of her breast, cupping it, squeezing it, running his thumbs urgently across the peak of flesh rising against the silk of her gown.

  Rowan moaned at his caress and he yanked down the sleeves of her bodice, exposing her tender nipple to his touch, to his tongue. Some part of his brain was telling him to stop, but the sight of her, with her head fallen back, eyes pressed closed in a delirium of desire, her red lips swollen from his kisses, her flushed naked breasts rising and falling with her ragged breaths….

  By God, it was too much! His hungry mouth closed around her breast, taking in her taut rosy flesh, sucking long luxurious pulls, and running his tongue, his teeth against her as she gasped and shivered in pleasure. He wanted h
er, to protect and keep her, to make her his, damn the consequences!

  She ran her hands through his thick hair, and he looked down into her face, the passion flaming in her eyes mirroring his own. He pushed her roughly against the bookshelves, pressing her between the old leather volumes and his own hard body. She clung to his shoulders, her nails digging into his flesh as he sampled the tender skin of her pulse point just below her ear.

  Before claiming her mouth with a hot all consuming kiss, he whispered into her copper curls, “You’ve bewitched me...I’m drunk on my desire for you.”

  She moaned in response as his leg pressed between her petticoats and she could feel his hard thigh nudging her aching sex.

  He yanked up her skirts and Rowan gasped as he ran his palms up the back of her thighs. He could feel the little tremors of her passion as his fingers traveled the sensitive skin before thrusting his hand boldly in her bloomers to cup her generous flesh in his hands.

  She sucked in her breath at the intimate touch and he felt himself rock hard against her thighs through the layers of silk and petticoats. He kneaded her bare buttocks with his palms, grasping her tight against him, his lips grazed at her swelling breasts, her neck, and once more he was drunk on her kiss, a long straining joining together in the heat of his mouth on hers, his hands on her bare skin pulling her up against his hard cock. He was losing control… the feel of her soft derrière in his hands, the sound of her gasping breaths and the wanton manner in which she was pressing her body against the length of his throbbing flesh....

  It was too much.

  Rowan gave a moan of pleasure as he tugged her bloomers down beneath the petticoats and hoisted her skirt up above her waist. She writhed in the firelight against the rows of books, her glorious red hair falling in waves across her naked breasts, her white thighs and bare sex exposed to his hungry eyes.