by Juliana Gray
“Basta!” An outraged voice tore through the air. “Basta!”
Alexandra looked up. A man was racing up the street toward Delmonico’s motor, brandishing a long, thin object that looked remarkably like a steering tiller.
“By God,” whispered Finn. He flung her aside and stood up on the floorboards. “By God!”
Alexandra stood up next to him. “Who’s that?”
“The chap who lost his steering, near the beginning . . . you missed it all . . . by God! There he goes!” Finn’s hands gripped the edge of the frame.
The man plunged into the crowd, waving his tiller and shouting.
“Basta! Basta!” Another voice joined in. Alexandra cast about and saw, from the other direction, a man running toward the finish line with an engine crank in his hand.
“By God!” said Finn again.
“Basta! Basta!” came another shout. A man with a tire.
And another.
Delmonico looked wildly around. He spotted the approaching men. He dove from the bonnet of his automobile, straight into the crowd.
Melee.
The tide turned so rapidly, so completely, Alexandra could only watch in astonishment. Delmonico’s mechanics plunged into the crowd, swinging fists. Women began screaming. Men began punching. Tires and steering tillers launched through the air.
Wallingford locked eyes with Finn. Finn nodded, once, and looked at Alexandra. “Stay here,” he said. “Don’t bloody move.”
He jumped from the motor-car and turned to Hartley’s mechanics. “Not a hair on their heads,” he warned, and he and Wallingford disappeared into the crowd, ginger head and black head bobbing together.
Abigail climbed in next to Alexandra. “You missed a jolly lark. All the other racers came back hobbled, claiming someone had sabotaged their machines. Such fun!”
“They’re going to get killed!” exclaimed Alexandra. The noise had reached a crescendo, a mad fury of swinging arms and tumbling bodies. She watched a man take up another and toss him artfully through a café window. She strained to see Finn’s fiery head amongst the crowd, but everything blurred together. Panic began to seethe through her body, hot and light.
Abigail shrugged. “They’ll look out for each other, of course.”
“But you don’t understand! Delmonico will . . . he’ll . . .” She couldn’t explain. She hadn’t the strength. Alexandra’s hands clenched on the metal, exactly where Finn’s fingers had lain a moment ago. Hartley’s mechanics pressed up tightly against the frame, facing outward in a protective phalanx. Hartley himself was nowhere to be found.
“He’ll what? Oh, come, Alexandra. The little dark-haired man? Either Wallingford or Finn could smash him to bits. Although I suppose,” she added, with a regretful sigh, “they’ll merely turn him over to the authorities.”
From the sea of crashing bodies emerged a tall darker-haired figure, flanked by an even taller ginger-haired figure, with the disheveled form of Bartolomeo Delmonico stumbling, defeated, between them.
“Thank God!” Alexandra’s legs crumpled with relief.
The crowd seemed not to notice. The fighting continued unabated. The man who’d been tossed through the café window came wobbling out again, bleeding from his forehead, and plunged back into the fray.
“You see?” Abigail said with satisfaction. “Family sticks together, Alexandra.”
“Yes. Yes, of course. Thank God. I . . .” She stopped. “What was that?”
“Family sticks together, of course. Those two may fight between themselves, but you needn’t fear if . . .”
“Family?” Alexandra’s mouth went dry. “Family?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Alex. Don’t tell me you don’t know.”
Alexandra turned to her sister, slowly, as if in a dream. “What do you mean?”
“Well, look at them. Don’t you see it?”
“See what?” Something flashed inside Alexandra’s skull. “But their . . . their coloring . . .” She faltered.
Abigail shrugged. “Oh, coloring, of course. But if you look past that, look at their faces, their bones. The shape of the eyes.”
Alexandra felt her face stretch, felt her mouth elongate into an oval O of astonishment. Her brain spun in a dazed circle, trying to fit the pieces together. “Oh no. It’s impossible. Are you saying Wallingford’s father sired him? They’re brothers?”
“No, of course not,” Abigail said impatiently. “Not Wallingford’s father, you goose. His grandfather, his mother’s father. The Duke of Olympia.”
Alexandra’s legs wobbled. She sat down with a wet thump, staring forward.
“His uncle.” A giggle escaped Alexandra, and another. “Finn is Wallingford’s uncle.” She laid her arm across her stomach and began to laugh, great hearty, hysterical laughs, all the madness and tension of the past several hours tumbling out of her in a flood of uncontrolled mirth. One of the mechanics looked up at her in shocked disapproval. “Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! His uncle!”
She wiped away tears and watched as the two of them dragged Delmonico toward a brace of policemen standing idly against a tree, watching the brawl. Waiting, presumably, for things to die down.
“Horrible, odious man. At least that Jellinek fellow will have to find another automobile for his investments,” she murmured to herself, as her giggles died down at last.
“Right-ho,” Abigail said briskly. “This has been going on long enough. Someone’s bound to get hurt before long.” She took an object out of her pocketbook, a short, plump revolver.
“Good God! Where did you get that?” Alexandra demanded.
“From the starter, of course.” She checked the primer. “I traded my aquamarine bracelet for it.”
With that, Abigail rose to her feet, pointed the pistol into the air, and fired.
TWENTY-EIGHT
A shadow crossed the doorway of the automobile shed, blocking the dark red glow of the fading sunset.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Finn straightened from the battery, which he’d just hooked up for recharging. “Alexandra,” was all he could whisper.
After the tumult, after the confusion, he’d had to stay with the police for hours, giving statements. Wallingford had escorted the ladies back to the hotel. He’d caught a glimpse of her in the lobby, much later, on his way upstairs to change from his dirty clothes. She’d had a crowd around her, hanging on her every word, just as they had at the dinner last evening. He could see, now, why London loved her. The way she smiled, the way she tilted her head and listened to her companion, the way she laughed in her throaty way. The way she had irradiated the air around her. She was made for crowds, made for parties. She’d been in her element, as far removed from his world as the sun from the moon.
“May I come in?”
“Of course.”
She closed the door and moved forward in a rustle of skirts, looking elegant in her sapphire evening gown and intricate headdress, her waist cinched once more into a neat circle. “Wallingford is looking after Abigail. They told me you were here. I wanted to speak with you.”
He gestured with his hand. “Certainly. I haven’t a seat, I’m afraid.”
She smiled. “Yes, you have.” With graceful steps she walked to the automobile and perched on the passenger seat, the seat she’d occupied so many times before. Her feet rested on the edge, small pointed toes peeping out from the edge of her dress. “So you’ve sorted everything out with police?”
“Yes. I almost felt sorry for the chap, until I remembered how he’d nearly killed you.” He cleared his throat. “Of course, you’ve lost the race. I’m sorry about that.”
“Oh, God, Finn. When he might have done something worse. When you might have been killed.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, now. There will be other races. People have seen how fast the steamer can go. Maybe even Jellinek . . .”
“Damn all that, Alexandra!”
She closed her eyes. “I know. I’m sorry.”
Finn
took a deep breath. “Look, I . . .”
She held up her finger. “No. Let me. I’ve been horrible to you, ever since I came to Rome. You’d made a kind gesture, an extraordinarily generous gesture, and I threw it back in your face. I insisted on racing, accused you of awful things, when you were only worried about my safety. I understand that. But you must understand . . .”
He reached out and touched the hair at her temple. “Buy you, you said. Before the race. Do you really think that?”
“Not . . . no. Of course not.”
“No man could ever buy you, Alexandra. I never even meant for you to find out, at least until later.” He let his finger drift downward to outline the edge of her ear. “Impossible woman. Why won’t you let me help you?”
“I won’t let you do it, Finn.” Her eyes were huge, the pupils fully dilated in the dimness. “I can’t let a single penny pass between us.”
“Christ, Alexandra.” He tore his hand from her face and ran it through his hair. “Don’t you see what you’re doing? You say you want to be something other than what you were, but that’s not true. You’ve always got to be the one in control. You’ve always got to be her almighty ladyship, always the immortal marchioness, as if money and titles are the only things that matter.”
She flinched, opened her mouth, and struggled for words. “I . . . That’s not true, Finn. I don’t give a fig about London society anymore.”
“Don’t you? Really, Alexandra?”
She looked at him steadily. “Really. These last few months, grubbing about in your workshop, have been the happiest of my life. I want to live like that forever. And I appreciate that you want to give me the choice, to have the resources to . . . to live with you, or not. It’s just . . . I simply can’t . . . I can’t have that money come from you. I’d be forever obliged, because you’ve made such a tremendous sacrifice . . .”
“Sacrifice?” He frowned. “It’s no sacrifice, darling. I want to buy the company.”
She tilted her head and began to remove her gloves, pulling at each fingertip with great care for the delicate satin. “It’s a steam automobile, Finn. What use would that be to you? You must give it up. I can’t let you do it for me.”
“For God’s sake, Alexandra. Do you really think this is all about you?”
“Isn’t it?” She tossed the gloves on the seat beside her and scoured him with her eyes.
He looked at her a moment and then turned away with a wrenching movement. “I need that company, Alexandra,” he said, staring across the little shed at the battery hulking next to the wall, feeding hungrily from the wires strung in from the electric generator in the main exhibition building. Tomorrow, it would all be taken down. Tomorrow, he and Alexandra would be on their way. Together, or apart? “I’ve been thinking of buying it for months. Didn’t you know that?”
“I . . . No. Not until Hartley turned up, a few days ago,” she said, in a small voice.
“Not because of you, Alexandra. Because of the building works. Have you ever been there?”
“No.”
He shook his head. “Your fortune’s invested in it, and you’ve never been there?”
“I didn’t invest it there. It didn’t seem to matter which company had ruined me.”
“It’s got a bloody marvelous workshop for research, and a testing ground, and the shell of a factory, ready for production. To build such a thing myself would take ages, and the devil of an amount of effort in planning and attention and supervision, which I can’t afford.” He looked back at her. She was watching him with wary eyes, her face shadowed by the wide curve of an ostrich feather. “I wanted Manchester Machine Works long before I met you, Lady Morley.”
“Oh. I see.” She fidgeted with the lace around her sleeves. “But the building isn’t worth fifty shillings a share, is it? You overbid.”
“In order to assure myself that shareholders would tender, yes.”
“But you could have bid twenty,” she insisted. “Twenty would have been more than enough.”
Something cracked inside him.
He took her by the shoulders, hard. “Yes! Yes, I could have! But I didn’t. I offered fifty shillings, Alexandra, and do you know why?”
She shook her head, wordless.
He moved his hands to her face, covering her cheeks and her jaw with his long fingers, and spoke in a harsh voice. “Because I love you. I love you desperately, ruinously. I can’t see you unhappy without wanting to help. To fix things for you, to make you whole again. So I offered fifty shillings a share for that damned company, and by God I’d bid a million if I had to. I’d borrow or beg or steal every penny I could lay my hands on. I’d pick the jewels from the Queen’s own crown and hang for it gladly, because nothing else on this earth means anything to me if a single wretched tear stands in your eye. Do you understand me?”
Her eyes searched his, round and astonished. From the other side of the thin wooden door of the shed came the sound of male laughter, hearty and unrestrained, and someone else joining in. It grew louder, drawing an almost visible line from the front of the shed to the center, before fading away to the back.
“Well then,” she whispered. “Well then.”
“Understood?”
“Yes.”
He leaned his forehead against hers and exhaled. “Good.”
She kissed him. A gentle kiss, and then another, her sweet breath mingling with his. Her arms stole around his waist, tugged his shirt from his trousers. Her shoulders shook; he realized she was laughing.
“Oh, God, how I love you,” she said. “I love you so.” She kissed him harder, met his tongue with hers, ran her fingers under his shirt to clutch at the skin of his back. “I love you, I love you. I . . . Finn!”
The last word came on a gasp as he dug his hands under her buttocks and lifted her up from the seat and onto the bonnet. Her skirts frothed around his legs, dark and endless. He reached up inside them and found her knees and drew them apart, settling himself between her thighs. “Say it again,” he said, pulling off her hat, letting hair and pins tumble free.
She looped her arms around his neck. “I love you.”
He pressed his nose against her throat and inhaled her scent, letting it wash through his head and body to awaken every last memory: kisses, laughter, bare skin, the hot quiver of her flesh against his.
“Oh, God,” she said.
He kissed her neck, her jaw, her chin; devoured her thoroughly, learning again the shape of her lips, the contours of her mouth and tongue. The golden taste of her shot through his blood. “Say it again,” he demanded.
“I love you.” Her hands went to his trousers, deft and eager, unfastening the buttons until his cock leaped fully erect into her palm.
He lost all thought, lost all sense of everything but pure animal lust. His hands went to her knees, traveled up her thighs, found the opening at the bottom of her drawers.
His breath drew in with a ragged gasp. “Good God.”
“I’ve been like this since yesterday,” she confessed. She turned her head into his shoulder as if ashamed. “Watching you as you stalked about, towering above everybody else. Wanting you. Imagining you dragging me behind some corner and tossing up my skirts and . . . Oh!”
He thrust inside her wet channel, burying himself to the root in a single stroke. Her head fell back with a cry; she braced herself on the smooth metal of the bonnet and wrapped her legs around him and met him, tilting her hips to take him deeper. Her dress fell away from her thighs in a cascade of lace and silk.
He pulled back in a long velvet glide. “Say it again.”
“I love you.” She was laughing, crying, singing the words.
He plunged forward and drew back. “Again.”
“I love you.”
He took hold of her round bottom and lifted her, impaled her on himself. He felt her snug embrace along his shaft, the grip of her legs around him, the dig of her heels into the tops of his legs, and he carried her back to the seat of the automo
bile and tumbled with her onto the dark beaten leather. “Again,” he growled.
Her fingers dug into his back. “I love you. I love you, Finn. Every atom of you. Oh, God, now, please, I can’t bear it.”
Neither could he. His need for her had been building for weeks. He rose above her and drove into her, hard and fast, while her hips lifted eagerly and her hands clenched in his hair and her back slid against the leather. He struggled for control, struggled to hold himself back, to wait for her; he felt himself rise inexorably toward the peak and gritted his teeth and reached down with his broad thumb, circling her in perfect rhythm with his thrusts, over and over.
Her back arched; she cried his name; her orgasm rippled around his cock and his own release burst from him in a blinding wave of pleasure.
* * *
Finn collapsed against her breast, heaving for breath, an infinitely precious weight on her heart. “Sorry,” he gasped, and made a motion as if to roll away.
“Stay.” She tightened her legs around him. “Stay.”
“I’m crushing you.”
“Stay.” The smell of leather rose up from the seat below her to thread through the sultry scent of union. Her fingers stroked through his hair; down his back, damp with perspiration; around the hard curve of his buttocks. His shaft still lodged deep inside her, linking them together. “Stay forever.”
His chuckle rustled against her ear, mingling somehow with the distant echoes of climax lapping through her body. Her muscles seemed to have taken on the consistency of aspic.
She’d never been so happy.
They lay quietly a moment longer, listening to the sounds outside the shed: the distant rumble of someone’s motor, the rise and fall of a deep male voice. It occurred to her that someone could walk in at any moment and see them tangled together on the seat of the automobile, flushed and sweating and disheveled.
She found, to her surprise, she didn’t give a damn.
He rose up on his elbows and studied her with a worried expression. “Bloody hell. I’ve blundered it, haven’t I?”
She stroked his cheek and smiled. “Not in the least. No, don’t,” she added quickly, but it was too late. He withdrew from her with a wince and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket.