by Zoë Archer
The original Whitston Hall had earned its name, built three centuries earlier of local pale limestone. As a child, Whit had played in the grass-covered remains just behind the main house. In the aftermath of the Restoration, his great-grandfather had razed the old Hall and built a new one of brick, with an abundance of modern sash windows that testified to the title’s wealth. The structure was perfectly symmetrical, consisting of two identical wings connected by a central hall. A balustrade ran the perimeter of the roof, and a cupola stood at the very top.
“I used to pretend I was a sea captain,” he said, pointing to the dome. “I’d stand at the windows of the cupola and imagine the hills to be waves, and the house was my ship.”
Zora nodded, smiling a little, but did not speak.
As they rode up the circular drive leading to the main entrance, Whit took a shallow pleasure in seeing the look of wonderment on her face. He admitted it to himself: he preened. Whitston was his, a physical embodiment of his affluence and prestige. She knew him as a gambler and had seen his home in London. But Whitston stood as a testament to his privilege, generations of his family firmly entrenched as one of England’s most esteemed. Even if the latest scion was a gambler whose soul belonged to the Devil.
The thought brought him back to full alertness. They had been granted a temporary reprieve, but the geminus would appear again. He would have to find and destroy it.
Before he and Zora brought their horses to a stop in front of the house, the large double doors opened and a man in a dark brown coat, buff breeches, and gray wig jogged down the wide stairs.
“My lord,” he panted, adjusting his waistcoat. He bowed. “This is an unexpected pleasure.”
“Mr. Reynolds.” Whit swung down from the saddle. Habit had him turning to help Zora dismount, but, yet again, she saw to herself and already stood beside her horse. “This is Miss Grey.”
The steward bowed once more. As Reynolds murmured his welcome, Whit glanced up to the open door and saw several curious faces peeking out. He did not recognize them.
“The post must have mislaid your letter, my lord,” the steward said. “None of the rooms are prepared, but that can be quickly remedied.”
Whit offered his arm to Zora. Her brows rose in surprise. They were both exhausted, hungry. Wounds of various kinds covered his body. Hardly the image of a lord and his lady retiring into the aristocratic comfort of the manor. Yet she tucked her hand into the crook of his arm, and together they ascended the stairs, regal as lions. Reynolds trotted beside them, and a groom appeared to lead off the weary horses. The servants inside scattered, disappearing into the dark recesses of the house.
“I sent no letter,” Whit said. “This visit was ... unplanned.”
“Of course, my lord.” The steward gained the top step a moment before Whit and Zora and held his arm out, gesturing for them to come inside. “I shall inform Mrs. Kinver of your arrival. How many guests shall we anticipate?”
“Only myself and Miss Grey.” They crossed the threshold to stand in the entry hall. Whit’s voice echoed off the vaulted ceiling, and he followed Zora’s gaze up to the windows set up high. Early morning sunlight slanted in from the east, leaving squares of gold upon the paneled walls. Her eyes were wide. He’d no doubt that this was the largest and finest home she had ever been inside. “And just for the day.”
Though Reynolds was a well-paid professional whose job description included largely humoring the whims of his employer, he blinked in astonishment. “The day?”
“Long enough for food, baths, and rest. Then we must resume our journey.” They moved from the entry hall to the staircase hall, where the carved oak stairs rose up two stories. He turned to Zora. “Will that content you?”
She inclined her head. “Yes, that is sufficient.”
Her imperious tone nearly made him smile. Gypsy girl she might be, yet no one could deny her confidence and pride.
“My lord,” Reynolds murmured, reddening. “How many ... how many bedchambers shall I have Mrs. Kinver prepare?”
Whit gazed at Zora, and she returned his look. She said nothing, but a flush the color of Baltic amber crept across the high contours of her cheekbones.
He opened his mouth to give his answer, but Zora spoke first.
“One bedchamber,” she said.
Time was needed before the master bedchamber could be of use. It needed airing out, linens on the bed, the rugs beaten. In the meantime, a meal was being prepared. The cook insisted on making a full dinner. Whit couldn’t regret the cook’s dedication. Hasty meals at inns and roadside chophouses had lost their appeal long ago.
While the bedchamber was made ready and the meal prepared, he guided her through the Hall. Most of the rooms were shut up, and holland covers draped over the furnishings like ghosts.
“It’s not looking its best,” he said, opening the doors to the Red Drawing Room. He strode in, with Zora trailing after him, and pulled open the heavy velvet curtains. He lifted the sash of the window so a gust of cold air swept inside. Dust swirled, dancing along the sunlight, and more spun through the air when he tugged off a holland cover to reveal a desk of carved mahogany. One by one, he stripped off the covers, until all the tables, chairs, and cabinets were revealed.
“The color suits you.” He glanced between her and the blood-red damask covering the walls. The hue did not flatter her so much as underscore her vivid beauty. “Passionate.”
In truth, the room had been anything but passionate. The wall coverings were merely dyed fabric. The room had always seemed hollow, filled with unused furniture and bereft of purpose. Zora was a brilliant flame, alive and radiant. And the room came to life when she stepped into it. The curtains moved in the breeze as if the house took its first breath.
She trailed her fingers along the inlaid surface of a side table, but gave it little notice. Her attention was fixed on him, not the room. Looking for something within him—but he did not know what she sought.
He watched her circle the room, skirting the edge of the Savonnerie rug as if it were a chasm waiting to swallow her up. Yet she was not afraid. This room, this house, to her they were merely things without meaning.
Even in her silence, she transformed this barren place. He saw Whitston Hall through her eyes, saw its emptiness. His own emptiness.
“What this room needs,” she said, her gaze on him, “is something green and living.”
“Gypsies aren’t farmers.”
A secret smile curved her mouth. “I’ll make something grow here.”
Brutally intense desire flooded him. He wanted to pull her down onto the chaise, throw up her skirts, and sink into her. His body was hot with it, hard and demanding. Take her, claim her. Now.
The geminus’s influence, or his own black hunger—he could not tell the difference, and that was enough to cool his need. Barely.
She saw his hesitation, and walked toward the door. “Show me more.”
He did. The large Saloon, with its gilt-wood mirrors reflecting views of the fountains and the lake. The Tapestry Room, so named for its Mortlake tapestries of impossibly bucolic scenes. The study, and the Yellow Drawing Room. Not wanting to stir up more dust, he did not open the curtains through the rest of the house. Everything felt mired in a continual twilight gloom. Holland covers haunted the chambers and the hallways. He pointed out various features of each room, but the words tasted of ash and felt hollow. She spoke very little but watched him closely.
They ascended the stairs to the Library and Long Gallery. He knew these rooms, this house, yet her presence made everything strange, alien, as though he suddenly could not speak his native tongue. Whitston was well tended, yet through her eyes he saw its neglect. Its history had always stifled him. He’d fled it as soon as he had been able.
In the Long Gallery, he decided to pull back the curtains so that the rows of portraits could be seen. She walked slowly down the gallery, examining each painting of waxen-faced ancestors in their Elizabethan ruffs, their Cavalier w
igs, their full-skirted coats, posing in satins with favored spaniels at their feet.
Whit rubbed the back of his neck, prickling with unease. He had the oddest sensation that he and Zora were being watched. But no servants were in the gallery. No one was there but him and Zora. The only other eyes were those in the portraits. He actually caught himself turning around quickly, as if he could catch one of the paintings looking at him. Yet all that met him were flat, painted eyes, forever unmoving.
She stopped in front of one painting. He did not need to look to know which one caught her attention.
“You were very skinny,” she said. “Someone wasn’t looking after you.”
“It took a steady diet of beef and beer at university before I filled out.” He did not care to look at the portrait, for it reminded him too much of the intervening years spent in riotous pursuits.
She turned to him, her gaze moving over him in a thorough perusal. Everywhere she looked, his body lit with a thousand invisible fires, until he became a pyre of need.
“And filled out well.” She glanced at the portrait, at the gallery, then back to him. “Do you know why the Rom don’t like houses?”
He shook his head.
“Because they are cold. Dead. You can’t know yourself when penned in by walls. Out there”—she nodded toward the window and the land beyond—“with nothing around us but earth and sky, that’s where we find the true measure of ourselves.”
His breath snagged. “I trapped you. In London. I took that from you.”
She smiled, holding up her hand. A delicate lace of fire wove around her fingers. “I got free.”
The elemental power of this woman, he craved it. Craved her. She could burn the house down, and he would not care. All he wanted was to be consumed by her fire.
Zora stood before a window, holding up a nightgown to the sunlight. The silken fabric was so fine, she could see right through it, nearly as clear as the window. Through the pale haze of silk, she made out the garden and lake that lay behind the house. She put her hand up into the gown. The fabric revealed every line on her palm.
If she put the gown on, she might as well be naked.
She was naked. Standing in the middle of a small room that adjoined the bedchamber, Zora wore nothing, not even her necklaces and rings. The strands of gold gleamed softly, piled carefully on a little table beside the bathing tub. The water was cloudy, cold, evidence that until a few minutes ago, she’d been as filthy as a beggar.
In a vast room dominated by a huge mahogany table, she and Whit had eaten a meal so rich and sumptuous, she had nearly dropped beneath the table and fallen asleep. Both of them had been dusty from the road, yet the servants had brought them platters of food with the same blank-faced dignity they would show to any respected gorgio.
Whit had spoken to the servants with an aristocratic reserve. He did not mistreat them, but they were not his equals. Both he and the servants understood this. Only Zora found herself strangely at a loss. This was not her world: the echoing hall, its empty rooms, the thick walls.
Only when she had looked at Whit and he had stared at her with meaningful heat over the rim of his wineglass did she feel comfortable. No, not comfortable, for there was no mistaking the sensual promise of his gaze. Yet looking at Whit made the house disappear, its walls dissolve. With him, she felt both secure and free.
They had finished the meal and gone upstairs, neither of them speaking. The air around them had been too thick with desire to permit anything more than the simplest actions and the fewest words.
More servants had brought bathing tubs—the luxury of having not one but two tubs astonished her, and hot water for both, though the scarcity of servants meant that it took longer to bring up and fill both—and Whit had adjourned to his bedchamber to wash himself, whilst she was given this smaller room for her own bathing.
As she washed, a woman servant had brought her the nightgown. Zora had no idea where the gown had come from, who owned it. Not one of Whit’s former mistresses, for it was clear he never came to this house. That gave her some comfort. She would sooner wear nothing than the discards of Whit’s past lover.
In a few minutes, his lover will be me.
Heart beating thickly, mouth dry, Zora slipped the gown over her head. It settled around her like a cool mist, smelling of lavender and the inside of a clothes press.
She went to the door that separated the two rooms, and softly knocked. Whit’s deep voice answered, bidding her enter. She did so, thinking with an inward smile that this was one of the few times she would obey a command.
Earlier, she had briefly been inside the bedchamber: a large room with cream-colored walls and a row of windows that faced the lake. Like all gorgio rooms, it left little impression in her mind, but something within it had captured her attention: the bed. Tall and canopied, its expanse could easily fit ten adults.
But it didn’t need to fit ten adults. Only two.
Whit stood at the window, his back to her, but he turned when she entered. For a moment, they did nothing more than stare at each other. The curtains were open. Sunlight filled the room. They saw one another plainly.
A robe of dark green silk clung to the width of his shoulders, and the sash tied at his waist attested to the narrowness of his hips. His feet were bare. Beneath the robe, he wore nothing; the fabric draped over the hard, tight shapes of his muscles. Arms, torso, legs. Hinted at, but not fully revealed. Yet, as he looked at her, she could not miss the stir of his cock under the silk.
His jaw tightened, and his burning gaze moved from her face to her chest. Glancing down, she saw that her breasts were almost completely revealed by the sheer nightgown. Her nipples, dark as plums, beaded under his attention, and the slight brush of the fabric against them sent shivers of awareness through her.
His breathing came hard and fast. So did hers. Neither spoke. Neither moved.
“Come here and touch me,” she said.
“Can’t.” His voice was an animal rumble, so deep that it resounded low in her belly, in her most secret places. His hands knotted into fists.
She frowned. “I want you to.”
“I don’t ... trust myself. Want you too much.” He shook with suppressed hunger, on the verge of violence, reminding her of a stallion she had once seen. The horse had been wild and without a mare for a long time. When it caught the scent of a mare, instead of racing toward it, the stallion had been frozen in place, overcome with need. Only a slap to its flank had pushed it to action.
Zora was no passive creature waiting to be claimed.
She strode across the chamber until she stood before him. At this close distance, she could see the cost of his effort in the tightness of his mouth, the cords of his neck. His pupils were large, like those of a predator. He smelled clean and musky and delicious.
“I’m not porcelain,” she said. “Not even steel. I won’t break.” She slid her hands up the front of his robe, feeling the solidity of his chest and the pound of his heart.
“Don’t want to hurt you.” His voice was a growl.
“You can’t.” She threaded her fingers together behind his neck and stepped closer until their bellies touched. His cock was thick and upright, hot as iron even through the layers of silk, and he rumbled when she tilted her hips against him. “Take this gamble with me.”
His eyes darkened. Then his lips came down onto hers. It felt as though it had been years since they last kissed, and their ravenous mouths demanded more, demanded everything. It could have been a battle. Or the best kind of seduction. All she knew was the taste of him, the wet heat of his mouth, the rasp of his tongue against hers. They drank each other up and clamored for more.
He moved from her mouth, and his teeth scraped along her neck. His breath came hot against her throat as he groaned her name. She pulled the tie from his hair. It sifted over her fingers, redolent of male arousal. She dug her fingers into his hard shoulders, but stopped when he hissed softly. Her fingertips traced the shape of the ba
ndage around the shoulder where she had burned him.
She moved to pull her hand away, but his own came up and pressed her against him.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” She echoed his earlier words.
“Everything you do, every way you touch me is exquisite.” He lowered his head and took her lips in a deep, dizzying kiss. One of his broad hands cupped her behind, urging her against him. His other hand stroked the aching swell of her breast. She moaned into his mouth.
The sound spurred him. He pulled the nightgown from her body in one swift, deft movement. Cool air danced over her heated flesh, yet she did not feel cold at all, not with his heat surrounding her.
He stared at her, the savagery in his gaze almost frightening. “This. How I’ve always wanted you. In my bedchamber. Naked.”
“I want the same.” She tugged open the robe’s sash, and pushed the garment over his shoulders and off his body. It fell in a gleaming green wave to pool on the floor.
Until that moment, they had never been fully nude together, and she was glad that they had waited until full daylight could show them everything and nothing could be hidden. Lean and hard, he radiated male strength. The perfection in his form was marred only slightly by the fresh bandages wrapped just beneath his ribs, around his shoulder, and on his hand.
Two of his injuries had come from her.
He followed her gaze to the dressings, particularly those that covered the wounds she had inflicted. His cock thickened even further, twitching high just beneath his navel, and a small bead of moisture appeared at the tip.
Slick heat flooded her. Her quim felt made of liquid fire, achy with need.
They surged together, bodies hot and tight and straining. Frustrated with the bandage on his hand, he tugged it off with his teeth, and it joined the robe and nightgown upon the floor. Then his mouth was on hers and his hands roamed everywhere, stroking her, learning her curves and hollows, all the sensitive places on her body that made her gasp when he touched them.
She found herself walking backwards until the mattress met the backs of her legs. Whit and Zora tumbled down together, his mouth never leaving hers, his long body atop hers a wonderful weight. The soft mattress cradled them as they stroked and caressed one another, fevered, lost to everything but the demands of passion.