The Unraveling of Lady Fury

by Shehanne Moore

  Perhaps, after all, he understood her need not to respond to him, without her having to spell it out to him. And if he did, there would be no need for further games. They could share the brisk businesslike nature of the transaction.

  Fury prayed so.

  Now she’d finally got it to this stage she didn’t understand why she felt so awful and so wrong about an encounter that was finally right.

  Chapter Nine

  “Thank you, Frau Berthe, but I know the way from here. I have been before, you know.”

  As she stormed up the metal staircase that led from Frau Berthe’s bougainvillea-scented courtyard to the rooms upstairs, Fury felt the same rage as her name spark all along her veins.

  Flint knew he was expected at ten o’clock. For the second day running he wasn’t just late, he was absent. Yesterday he had called once. As for the day before that… She didn’t want to think about the day before that. But she had smelled drink on his breath. Rum. Quite a lot of it. What a surprise. Give the man an inch and he was sure to take ten miles.

  Of course, she had known it would take less than a week to let her down. She was only surprised he had managed the seven days. He was unreliable. He was untrustworthy. He was everything she did not want in the father of her child. And he had placed her in the unenviable position of having to fish him out. Of this place.

  She was here to tell him if he could not start behaving like a gentleman she would cut the rent. He could live on the streets, in the gutter, on the quay, for all she cared. She could only pray her labors had borne fruit. Pray God, she was pregnant. In all honesty, she could not take another month of this, any of it. From his failure to appear, to the brittle, burning silence of the exchanges when he did.

  Malmesbury would make a better choice. A dog would make a better choice.

  Reaching the top of the steps, she grasped a breath into her choked lungs. The day was hot and the striped muslin of her dress clung to her drenched form. She would have liked the luxury of a carriage to ride in. It wasn’t an option. This morning she’d had to pay creditors. Madame Angelina, her gown-maker, Signor Rossi, Thomas’s wine-merchant. She’d had to pawn one of the statues of Cupid to do it.

  “Madam?”

  Damn it. Must Frau Berthe pant along behind her on the staircase like this? A woman of her age and bulk, it was undignified, not to mention intrusive.

  “Madam, I do not think the Signor would wish you to go in there right now.”

  Who? Flint? She would give him the Signor when she got her hands on him. That nip of his knuckles was nothing compared to what she would do.

  Just look at Frau Berthe. Built like a battleship, with a face like lumpy dough, yet clearly under Flint’s spell. Barging past as if her feet were propelled. Calling him the Signor, for God’s sake.

  “Thank you, Frau Berthe. But since I’m paying for the Signor’s room, the Signor doesn’t have a say in it. Now, if you will excuse me.” She tried ducking round, but the woman planted herself in her path.

  “He is not at home.” Frau Berthe folded her arms.

  Fury raised her eyebrows. How undignified was it to get in a scrap over Flint. She was done with such things, surely?

  “Then I’ll wait. Thank you.” She pushed past Frau Berthe toward the door.

  “Madam—”

  “I’ll wait in here.”

  Fury grasped the handle. Really, anyone would think Flint was up to something the way Frau Berthe tried so hard to keep her out. Fury flung the door open.

  Oh God, he was up to something. It was all Fury’s jaw could do not to hit the floor. Mother of God, he had a roomful of whores. Vilely insinuating. Buxomly pretty. Garishly dressed—at least they were dressed. How could Frau Berthe allow this?

  Never mind Frau Berthe.

  She thought she was going to collapse. This was like that moment on the quay, as God awful as it was unexpected. She couldn’t breathe or see or think, as if she’d run right into a wall.

  She fought for the strength to turn on her heel and head straight back down the staircase, to lose her swimming senses in the bustle of the crowded street. But her paper legs betrayed her.

  She’d asked him to refrain from whoring while the heir was conceived. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t getting any sex. She swallowed a gasp. Was this why he’d become ineffectual of late? Because he was getting too damned much?

  Frau Berthe clapped her hands, a sharp tap tap. Fury turned to glare. Good God, what kind of place was this? His antics weren’t worthy of applause. Had or had she not pawned Signor Santa-Rosa’s silver combs for this?

  “Verlassen!” Frau Berthe barked.

  The women—two, though whether there were two or twenty was not the point—peeled themselves out of their poses and gathered their shawls and bags. Each with the slow, studied temerity to plant a kiss on Flint’s cheeks.

  Fury felt the breath tightening in her lungs, as if she’d labored to the very top of the city’s bell tower. Whores didn’t kiss. No wonder he curved his lips upward.

  “Ciao, Flintee.”

  Flintee? Fury thought she was going to vomit with what curdled in her stomach. And the looks they gave her, as they brushed past, saying wasn’t she the lucky one, getting to bed Flintee?

  She could only pray this nausea meant she was pregnant. And it was all of it, Lady Margaret, the money, Signor Santa-Rosa, going to be all right.

  But for a second she stood. Not because she wanted to. Because she did not know what to do.

  Never had she been so aware of that little word, if, beating at her senses like a bat. If Lady Margaret had liked her. If Flint hadn’t come back into her life. If she continued with this. She felt too old, too worn out for if. All this just to get the Beaumont heir didn’t seem worth it somehow.

  “Excuse me.” Frau Berthe nodded. Her heels clinked all the way to the bottom of the metal staircase.

  Fury swallowed. The pain in her throat was so acute. To add to her distress, in her haste to rush here, she had flung the veil over her straw hat. Only now did she realize that she looked like a beekeeper.

  She could deal with that at least. Even as she reached to snatch the veil off, the thought occurred it would mean showing her face. And then he would see what glistened in her eyes.

  She hesitated. If she didn’t, though, he might think she was upset at finding him with not just one woman, but two.

  But Frau Berthe hadn’t been mortified, had she? No, because no doubt she’d been run off her feet all week, showing women up the stairs and down. No doubt her only astonishment was that Fury here made it three.

  No. Whatever else Fury did or didn’t do here, she would sooner die on the floor there than give him the slightest inkling she was, in any way, upset.

  Her pride would not allow it. She must remove the veil or she must leave. And that, too, would only signal to him how deeply he had betrayed her. Over a business transaction. She raised her chin.

  “It’s…it’s not what it looks like.” His voice, rich and low, washed over her. “All right?”

  No. It wasn’t. But how typical of him to think it might be. Raising her hands to her head she grasped the veil.

  “Not what it looks like? Do pray tell me what it is. Even if what it is, in all honesty, neither surprises nor bothers me.”

  She marveled at her fingers not only for undoing the pins, but folding, with perfect symmetry, the veil into a neat rectangular bundle, which she could place over her arm. And at her voice, for sounding so cool, so amused, as if she cared not a jot.

  “You know I believed we had a deal. But perhaps not.”

  Flint closed his eyes for a second. “Fury.” He huffed out a breath. “Look. About that…that deal.”

  She walked to the bed. It was an awful lot better than standing in the doorway after all, entertaining Frau Berthe’s other residents with the salacious details of his God-awful inability to keep his breeches secured.

  Although when she considered the entertainment Frau Berthe’s other r
esidents had had all week, this was probably poor fare. But her knees shook. It would be better to place herself near something she could sit down on should the need arise, rather than let him see she was anything less than contained.

  “About what? The fact you appear to have broken your end of it, and, never mind me, my child may now be riddled with God alone knows what disease, because not even you yourself would know at this moment in time. How much sex does one man need in the day?”

  “Hell, I never did anything, all right?”

  What did that exasperated grit in his voice mean? And the way his hands clenched?

  She hesitated. The whores had been fully clothed. And so was he. His breeches weren’t even undone. She glanced away after noticing. He wasn’t the only one with the unfortunate ability to look where one shouldn’t.

  Or was he just sorry he’d been caught?

  “Goodness. Next you’ll be telling me you wouldn’t.”

  “Couldn’t is more like it.”

  Him? Did he want her to laugh?

  He went to close the door, and her gaze fell on the tiny bedside table. What sat on it affronted her vision. Or at least it hit it. She didn’t know if it affronted it. Surely she would not feel the need to look closer if it had?

  “I didn’t mean you to see that.”

  Before she could examine things further, he strode across the room. But even as he snapped up what sat on the table, a book, the images displayed were enough to fill her with thoughts and feelings she could not quantify.

  Mother of God, how could Frau Berthe allow such a thing in her house? And yet, imagine if Flint did to her the things she saw displayed in those etchings.

  Imagine? What did she need to imagine for? He had.

  What was going on here? Flint didn’t look at things like this, not that she knew of anyway. He didn’t need to.

  “Look…”

  She would have liked to, but he held the book under his arm. Her gaze was riveted, and not just by the book, which absurdly she suddenly wanted to be, tucked beneath his arm. He looked so uncomfortable standing there. No less a man. He could never be that. No matter what she made him.

  “Were…were you going to touch those whores?”

  “What?”

  “The whores?” Realizing her voice sounded faint, distant, she cleared her throat. “Were you going to touch them?”

  “No. Hell, they should be so lucky. I should be so lucky. You ain’t…aren’t.” He cursed beneath his breath. “Aren’t exactly—”

  For a second she stared, a cold, knowing chill gathering in her spine. “Helpful?”

  “Sort of.”

  Tact wasn’t something she associated with Flint. She wasn’t helpful at all. She edged her gaze sideways. Of course she couldn’t be anything other than impersonal. Only seeing him like this, the slow burning fuse sizzling deep inside him, she saw she’d overdone it, hadn’t she?

  “I just respectfully look is all.”

  “James…”

  “And they’re nice to me.”

  “I—I can be nice to you. If that is what you want.”

  “They like me. Hell, I don’t know why. But they do.”

  “I—”

  “Don’t you say you do too. We both know that’s a lie.”

  It was. But only in that she didn’t just like him. Who was she kidding? And she never had just liked him.

  She wished she could reach her hands up to cup his face. This close, what she read in there didn’t only invite it; what she read in it broke her heart.

  “Which is why I can’t do this anymore.” He set the book down.

  She should have seen this coming. She had seen this coming. Only it was easier to keep staring the other way because of the things it meant giving away.

  “Yes, you can. Because I can change. I know I can. I can stop—I can stop this. I just—”

  “This is me you’re talking to.” He hardened his mouth. “So just quit it. You’ve never been anything less than sore at me for dumping you on that quay. I get it.”

  “You don’t.”

  “And making you choose me instead of Malmesbury. Or one of these other damned jackasses. I get that too. I got it at the time.”

  “That is not so.” She gulped. Tell him. She was going to have to tell him.

  “I been getting it since. Twice. Three times a day. No matter what I do. Which is why I’m not hanging about to get it anymore.”

  “No, Flint.”

  He frowned, looking at her for a long moment. “How do you know I can even make you this baby anyway? You could be wasting your time, for all you know. Far as I know I never made a baby in my whole life. And I’ve done it plenty.”

  She bent her head. There was no if about this. What stood between them was a secret she could no longer keep.

  “You already did.”

  He must have stepped closer. Or maybe she did, because she felt his chin brush her head and his breath sharp against her.

  “You did with me. I never had a miscarriage with Thomas. I was never pregnant by Thomas.”

  “Fury…”

  “You have a daughter. And I couldn’t—I wouldn’t get rid of her.” She knew if she told him everything she could not put the rules back. But what surged through her right now, these were consequences she would deal with after. And it was no surrender of her principles, but a slap in Storm’s face as much as her own, if he walked out.

  Although the thought that he would was far away when she felt his hands catch the sides of her face. He raised her head to look at him. She had never seen such a look on his face before. Sick, fit to kick himself. Bewildered. But, above all else, tender. And the way his heart beat beneath her hands as she placed them on his chest was enough to convince her she had done the right thing telling him.

  “You mean, when I left you, you knew you were—”

  “By about two months. Storm Fontanelli.”

  “Storm?”

  “She was born in one.”

  “And you knew?”

  “Please, that doesn’t matter now. What matters…all that matters if you won’t stay and do this for me is you do it for her. I need that money. To keep her. It’s all I’m asking. I can’t…I won’t let her have the upbringing I had. It’s the reason I’ve done everything.”

  “But—”

  “Kiss me.” Begging had never been her intent. But in that second she edged her arms around his neck. Heat. Fire. Flame. What she had denied herself several days ago was all she wanted to feel. Tastes so sweet and hot, she knew she was within her rights experiencing the pleasure his mouth gave her. So much as she remembered, the need for more of him was excruciating.

  His body, hard through the layers of clothes, made every bone in her own flame and then dissolve. Had his fingers not spread across her face, she’d have fallen.

  If she went further now, like this, then she threw away forever the chance of keeping control of this situation. She needn’t pretend to insanity, or curiosity, when she’d made rules because she knew, not just every inch of this man’s body, but what these inches were likely to do to her.

  “What are you saying, Fury?”

  It was strange, to hear him ask when she’d kissed him. But the fact her fingers found his shirt and tugged it from his waistband was answer enough. It was enough she gave him, enough she did this. He couldn’t want more.

  “No, listen, I need to know.” His fingers worked over her cheeks. “I left you like that. How did you manage?”

  “There’s such a thing as corsets.”

  “You met Thomas then?”

  “Protectors aren’t for virgins.”

  Being Flint, no doubt he imagined the carnal logistics of this. But all she could see was the dark stubble on his jaw and the fire in his eyes, as she untangled him from his shirt and tossed it on the floor.

  “I landed him at a price. He believed I was someone else. You have to help us, Flint.”

  “Help you?”

  “You hav
e to give me this baby. Believe me, there’s no other way. If there were I’d have taken it. Did Thomas ever think Storm was his? Did I try to pass her off as his? There was no way I could do that. I went away. I took what money I’d left from the sale of Celia’s jewels, the few you left me with.”

  “Hell, I thought you’d stolen them…right?”

  It wasn’t right. But his skin, his skin was beneath her hands. His sculpted chest, warm and golden. His neck. His face. His hair. Like old times. Only the brush of his lips felt different somehow. Softer. And more respectful somehow. Although there was no mistaking the hard press of his body said he wanted his pleasure.

  “I thought I was going to have to find another protector once she was born. But Thomas thought I had been pregnant to him and that was why I left, to deal with matters discreetly.”

  “Get rid of her, you mean? Why didn’t you? Why, when I left you?”

  There was only one answer to that. But it would leave her with nothing to give it. She had always loved him. If she had a last night to be spent on earth it would be with him. That was the extent and depth of her passion. It was why she could never have aborted Storm, why she stood here now. But it wasn’t the depth of his.

  Still she quivered, as his head bent. Maybe it was what she’d told him. Maybe it was just that she was finally going to let him do this properly, but his mouth had an astonishing fierceness about it, as well as a sweetness she’d never experienced with him before, for all that he took control as if he were going to devour her.

  She wanted to tear off her gown but her feet left the floor. Instead she wrapped her arms and her legs around him and let him carry her to the bed.

  She sank onto the pillows, gasping to feel him work her stockings down off her legs in a second. All the time the touch of his hands was so much like honey on her skin, she marveled at his male perfection. He never faltered. He never fumbled. He knew how to undress a woman and make her feel wanted. To fill her with such desire, heat flooded her veins.

  Her own fingers shook; she could barely find the fastening on his breeches. A few tugs and she dragged them over his narrow hips. The feel of his hard, golden skin made her wild with wanting.