by Elisa Braden
“You are being irrational.”
“—injure those fine lips. And no touching, either. You’ll need your hands—”
“Eugenia.”
“—for pottering about with your little plants—”
He stopped her words with his mouth, taking hold and sliding his tongue inside in one swift move. Predictably, her body lifted toward him—every fiber, every part. It wanted to merge, to climb, to feel his skin. She moaned at the pleasure of his lips. Clutched at woolen lapels and clawed at a linen-bound neck.
This heat. It could not be natural. She’d never felt the like—aching emptiness only he could fill, tingling shivers only he could spark. These were the strings of madness. He tied her so tight, she lost her breath.
She tore away, pulling his hands from her waist and backing up until grape leaves brushed her skirts. Her heart drummed the bones of her chest in a desperate rhythm.
He stood still. Dark. A green-eyed raven watching her carefully. “You’ve nothing to fear from me,” he said hoarsely.
But she did. The fear filled her like the incoming tide as she held his gaze. Examined those fascinating lips. The long nose. Proud cheekbones and level brows.
His beloved face.
This beloved man.
No. No, no, no, no. She could not love him.
Because he would never love her while he still loved Maureen.
Love without reciprocity made one a slave to endless desire and futile hope. It made one a fountain with no lake, just dry, empty stone.
She refused to fall into such a trap. She would escape it. All she needed was a plan. This was Holstoke, after all. Surely it could not be that hard to keep herself from falling in love with Holstoke.
“Sweetbriar,” he murmured as though speaking to himself. “That is what you are. A single blossom is worth every thorn.”
Dear God. Resist. Resist. She must resist. “If—if you call me briar again, I shall start calling you …” She scrambled to think of something, but her mind was swimming in lustful inebriation. All she could manage was another of his names. “Phineas.”
His eyes fired. His shoulders went rigid. His head tilted and he licked his lips. Good heavens, he looked predatory. “We have a bargain, Briar.”
Oh, no. Her belly was heating and fluttering in a most ominous manner. She shook her head. “That was not a bargain.”
He came toward her, hands clasped at his back. “Sounded like one to me.”
“Holstoke. Phineas. Honestly.” She swallowed and held up her hand. “I am frigid. I am.”
Her hand met his chest as he closed in upon her. He leaned down and blew a gentle stream of air on the side of her neck.
Shivers took hold. Gooseflesh rose. Her nipples went painfully hard.
“Not with me,” he whispered. “Remember that, my Briar. Perhaps other flowers bloom readily for any hand. You require mine.”
*~*~*
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Hmmph. Even the finest men have flaws, my dear. A lady is wise to identify them early so that training may commence in a timely fashion. Husbands require careful handling, you know.” —The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham to Lady Katherine Huxley upon said lady’s declaration of admiration for a suitor’s fine baritone.
She felt his heart beneath her fingertips. Stunningly, it galloped nearly as fast as hers. He always appeared so calm, so unaffected by her proximity.
But his heart told a different story.
Sighing, she leaned into him. Breathed lemon and mint and shaving soap.
His lips nibbled at a spot just beneath her jaw.
She tilted her head to give him better access, even as she struggled against losing her heart. “Holstoke. Phineas.”
“Phineas will do.”
“I—I think you’ve done something to me. Something wicked.”
“Not yet. But I intend to.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “I cannot think clearly when you kiss me.”
“Thinking is not required.”
Gathering every ounce of will she could muster, she pushed at him. He stopped kissing her neck, but he did not back away. “Phineas,” she groaned.
Calmly, he tugged at the ribbons beneath her chin and removed her bonnet, plopping it onto the gravel. “Briar.”
She met his eyes. Summoned her fortitude. “Tell me something dreadful. About you.”
His expression did not change—steady resolve and scalding intensity. He ran his knuckles lightly down her cheek to brush her lower lip. “Why?”
“I like to be informed.”
“Hmm. Well, my patience runs short when those I care for are insulted or threatened.”
“That is natural, not dreadful. You must have undesirable qualities. Everyone does.”
“Some accuse me of tedious conversation.”
“No, no. Worse.”
He shook his head. “Such as?”
“I don’t know! Diseased, putrid feet. Or cruelty to kittens. Or a secret yearning for raw onions.”
The corners of his mouth twitched. “My feet are quite healthy, I’m afraid. And I prefer my onions cooked.” His grin went wide with a teasing glint. “Roasted kittens with onions—my favorite dish.”
She swatted his arm. “Do be serious.”
He chuckled. “Very well. Here is the truth: At the moment, my only secret yearning is for Briar. Sweet, wild Briar.”
“Oh, God.” Fluttering panic set in. “Please, Phineas. Tell me something bad. Something you wouldn’t wish me to know.”
His eyes sobered. He turned his face toward the sounds of the sea. For long seconds, she thought he might not answer. Then, he did.
“I hated my mother.” His voice was distant. Quiet. “I still do.”
She breathed through the pain in her chest. Forced her hands to clench rather than reach for him. “Everybody hates her—”
“Not like this. Long before I knew the things she’d done—before I can remember, in fact—I wanted …” He heaved a shuddering breath. “I wanted her to die.” Within wondrous green was the pain of his confession. The battle he’d fought and lost. “A son should not wish such things.”
And there it went. Her last, faint hope for keeping her heart. She felt the tether unravel. Slip from her grasp.
She closed her eyes, but all she could see was a boy. Black hair. Pale, solemn gaze. Intelligent beyond his years. Small as Edwin but much, much quieter. That boy had sensed the evil in his mother. And, being the protective sort, he’d wished her dead.
He’d thought this the worst secret he might reveal. Even now, she sensed he expected her to feel disgust. But she felt only shivers. More and more until they became bubbles of glowing light and heat and expansion. The sensations traveled through her veins to pulse and stretch every inch of her skin.
By heaven, she loved him. Perhaps she always had. For, now she understood how well she knew him. She knew him. Down to the bottom of his valiant soul.
How could she hope to keep her heart safe? The answer was obvious: She could not.
“Phineas,” she whispered, opening her eyes. Beloved face. Beloved man. “Kiss me.”
A flicker of surprise. A blaze of desire. Then, his arms enfolded her, half lifted her. His lips were upon hers. His chest worked against hers. He pleasured her mouth and backed her against the leafy trellis and ground his hardness against her. “Bloody hell, Briar,” he panted. “How do you do this to me?”
Her? This was him. Tall and fascinating with sorcery in his touch. He obsessed her. Possessed her. She was a vine upon his trellis, her form permanently altered by his presence.
He cupped her cheeks and kissed her again, deep and long and pulsing. She stroked his arms and wrists. Frantically unbuttoned his coat. Slid her arms inside and around his waist so she could feel his heat against her.
Soon, he was tugging at her skirts. Lifting them just as frantically but with far more precision. Then, his fingers—those sorcerous fingers—were upon her. Inside her. Sliding
and circling.
She spread her legs for him, holding herself up with fistfuls of his waistcoat.
Gently, but with increasing firmness, his fingers generated a storm. Sliding. Sliding. Sliding. In and out. Around and around. Skirting the place that ripened to bursting.
“This belongs to me,” he whispered against her lips, his breath hot and fast. He inserted a second finger. “Your need is mine. Your nectar is mine. You flower only for me.”
Her head fell back, cushioned by leaves and vines. The pleasure was roiling, rippling, rushing like steam. It billowed out and up. Swelled toward his touch. “No, Phineas.” She twisted to force his thumb closer to where she needed him. “There.”
He slid deliberately past the center while stroking inside her with his other two fingers. The pressure grew inside, but not where she needed him.
“Please,” she begged. “God, please.” This was how it had been last night. He’d pleasured her with his fingers and his lips and his tongue and his staff. Relentlessly, he’d coaxed her toward unimagined heights, delaying each explosive, repeated peak until she’d pleaded for him. Now, again, he drew out the pleasuring, his eyes glowing down at her with a feverish light. Hard, long fingers pressed harder and deeper. His talented thumb stroked near, yet not upon, the center of her need.
When the peak came, it shocked her into a long, gasping moan. Hard, powerful surges forced her onto her toes as he whispered in her ear, “That’s right, my sweet Briar. Bloom. Let me feel it.”
Rings of pleasure concussed through her, one after another, as he squeezed her tightly and kissed her throat. The ripples shivered outward even after he withdrew his beloved, pleasure-giving hand and let her skirts fall.
Even after he bent and scooped her into his arms.
She gasped again, scarcely able to make sense of her new position. She clasped his neck, trembling with the echoes he’d left inside her.
With swift urgency, he carried her around a bend in the tunnel. She spied a small opening cut into the trellises—a window to the sea—before he lowered her gently back onto her feet. He stroked her cheek tenderly then shrugged out of his coat and laid it over a stone bench beneath the window.
She stood swaying and watching, not understanding what he was about until he sat upon his coat and pulled her forward between his knees. Then, he loosened his fall. Raised her skirts. And without a word, he positioned her straddling him with her knees resting on his coat and her backside resting on his thighs.
She sighed and hugged his neck. Buried her nose in the linen. Beneath her, she felt his hard staff pressing where she was still slick and sensitive. She blinked. Drew in a sharp breath as the sensations started up again. She moaned and leaned back to see his face. Cupped his jaw and ran her thumb across his splendid lips. “Phineas,” she whispered, loving how near he was in this position. How she could see the blue rings around heat-darkened green. How she could kiss him so easily.
She brushed his mouth with hers. Ran her tongue across his lip.
He was saying something, but her blood was pounding and the sea was pounding and everything was pleasure.
“… lift you up. Just relax.”
She felt his arm strong about her waist. Felt the blunt tip of his staff, hot and separating. Stretching and full. Sliding and deep and … “Oh. That … it is almost …”
Too much. It was almost too much. As he lowered her down upon his staff, he sank all the way to the root. Her earlier pleasure eased his passage, eliminating most discomfort, though some soreness remained from the previous night and morning.
But, God, how he filled her. How his eyes blazed and consumed her.
“Take me,” he murmured.
Yes. Yes, she would. She would take him inside and let herself love him. Because she did. She loved him. Her heart was going to explode with the joy of it. As it was, she felt on the edge of weeping.
She loved him. Phineas. Her Holstoke.
She leaned her forehead against his. Held those stunning eyes. Saw a reflection that looked like ravenous hunger. Felt him brush something from her cheek. “Phineas,” she whispered, aching now. Between her thighs. In her belly. In her chest and heart.
His hands gripped her hips. A pained frown darkened his brow. “I cannot wait any longer, my sweet one. I need you now.”
She kissed him. Nodded. “What do you need me to do?”
“Move,” he uttered, his voice a thread. “You know how to ride. That is the rhythm. Take what you can. And move.”
It took her a few moments to puzzle out the angle, but once she braced her hands upon his shoulders, she was able to rise on her knees. Her eyes flew wide at the friction of the withdrawal. Then they drifted closed as she sank back down. Oh, to be filled again. The pleasure of it. The rightness.
“Bloody hell, Briar. You are killing me.”
“Oh.” She grinned teasingly. “Is that you, Phineas? I was having such a pleasant ride.”
Muscles in his jaw flexed. “Quicken your gait, or I shall take the reins.”
A little thrill moved across her skin, zinging between her thighs and into her breasts. “Perhaps you should.” She leaned forward and tested a theory, whispering against his lips, “I am but a novice, you know. A master rider would have much to teach me.”
He groaned, deep and pained. Dark light exploded in his eyes. His arm braced around her lower back while his hand gripped her thigh. Then, he thrust. Drew her down upon him and thrust deeper. Rougher. With every stroke, he filled her fully then withdrew to the tip. Again and again and again. His rhythm was nothing like hers. This was hard and fast and uncontrolled. Heat built inside her sheath, the friction stoking a renewed fire. Soon, she was helping him sustain it, grinding her hips into his, kissing his delicious mouth.
The hand that had been on her thigh moved in and touched her lightly just above where they joined. She jerked. Gasped his name. Seized upon him. Felt the culmination rise up suddenly in a burst of ecstatic pressure.
God, it was painful to feel this much pleasure. She screamed through gritted teeth, clawed at his shoulders and gripped him inside, trying to hold him in place.
He did not comply. He continued his pounding rhythm, his touch against her swollen center harder now, forcing her higher until her voice shredded and her body coursed with rhapsodic waves. Behind closed eyes, she saw nothing but light. Bright bursts of light that were but a dim reflection of her pleasure’s pulsating brilliance.
When she opened her eyes again, she saw something even more beautiful—her husband’s eyes fixed upon her, near mad with the pleasure she was giving him. And, in that moment, her longing deepened. Widened. Grew to include a new aim: She would give him pleasure he’d never imagined. She would become his obsession, as he was hers. Her reward would be to see this every day. Phineas in a state of ecstatic bliss. She would feel this every day. Phineas’s release exploding inside her.
Ah, yes, she thought, smiling and stroking his hardened jaw, cupping his neck as he clutched her waist and groaned his release against her throat. If this was all she might have of him, if he could never love her, then she would take every bit. His pleasure. His need. His name and his babes.
She brushed away a stupid tear as she caressed his back and neck, kissed his ear and stared out at the incoming tide.
Maureen might have his heart, and that was surely torment. But everything else belonged to Genie. And, come what may, she intended to keep what was hers.
*~*~*
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Bah! Arrogant Bow Street rabble. I daresay this matter might have been resolved weeks ago, had he simply accepted your assistance. A good hunter knows the advantages of a superior hound.” —The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham to her boon companion, Humphrey, upon receiving Mr. Jonas Hawthorn’s reply to a most generous offer.
The prostitute was not poisoned. She’d been discovered inside a house in Knightsbridge, her throat cut open, her face beaten so badly she’d been unidentifiable. Pinned to her gown
, however, had been a flower, shriveled and dry. Henbane. Jonas had known it on sight, thanks to the botanical sketches Holstoke had sent him.
Now, as he tapped his pencil against his notebook and watched a constable haul a drunkard to stand before the Bow Street magistrate, Jonas rubbed his eyes and silently cursed. In the two days since a watchman had discovered the body, he had not slept. Something about this murder deepened the itch along his neck.
Poison was a refined weapon, distancing and clean. Fists were personal. Enraged.
He’d scoured the area around Knightsbridge, asked neighbors what they’d noticed. Nobody had heard or seen anything. The house had sat empty for years, and Knightsbridge was not known for its prostitutes. But she’d been dressed like one, her body showing signs of her profession. That was all he knew.
“Sleepin’ again, Hawthorn?”
Jonas glanced up to see Drayton limping toward him. “Tell me you found something.”
Drayton tossed his notebook on the desk in front of Jonas and slumped into a chair, rubbing his leg as though it pained him. “She was a lightskirt, name of Mary Bly. Her bawd, Old Sally Sawyer, claims she went missin’ a week ago.”
A week. Jonas sat forward, his skin prickling. “What else did Old Sally say?”
“Not much.” Drayton looked as tired as Jonas felt, his eyes drooping even more than usual. “Miss Bly had been at it a year or so. A right popular dove.”
“Popular?”
“Aye.” Drayton winced and rubbed harder at his leg. “The gents called her Midnight Mary, on account of her hair. A real beauty. That was all the bawd would say. You know Old Sally. Cares more for ’er gin than ’er girls.”
Jonas shot out of his chair and retrieved his greatcoat and hat.
“Hawthorn! Where the devil are you goin’, man?”
“To speak to Old Sally.” He had a sick feeling in his gut. This murder was different. It was a message. He just hadn’t deciphered it yet.
Drayton groaned and shoved to his feet. Ignoring the older man, Jonas strode out of the Bow Street office and headed for Castle Street, where Old Sally resided. He was halfway there when he felt it. The itch on his neck intensified, running down his spine like a trickle of water. He glanced over his shoulder. Saw Drayton loping to catch up, yet falling behind. He scanned the shouting peddlers and indolent wretches who frequented the outskirts of Covent Garden. Little pickpockets darted between pedestrians. Carts full of pottery and fruit and chickens lumbered by. A young girl sold a handful of daisies to a couple fresh from the country. The girl’s accomplice lifted the man’s purse as deftly as Jonas shaved his whiskers.