Boldly she brushed past him and all but ran down the path and into the house.
She didn’t stop until she reached her bedchamber, where she closed and locked the door behind her.
Twenty-two
“Where have you been?” Freddy asked from where he’d been sitting before Leonora’s fire contemplating the dilemma he now faced. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
She jumped at the sound of his voice, and turning to brace her back against the door, she scowled. “Do not frighten me like that! What on earth do you think you’re doing hiding in the shadows of my bedchamber?”
“I was waiting for you,” he said calmly. “And thinking. But I must ask again where you’ve been. Because I know the look of a lady who’s gotten away with something and you definitely have that look.”
Sighing, she walked farther into the room, and removing the pins from her hat, placed it on a side table along with her wrap. “I was in the stables, if you must know,” she said, excitement making her eyes sparkle. “I found something there. Something important.”
Reaching out, he pulled her unceremoniously onto his lap. She gave a little shriek, but soon settled against him, relaxing a bit, though he could feel the tension of excitement in her. “Something to do with your brother, I suppose,” he said, threading his fingers into hers.
He’d received a bit of a reprieve regarding the business with Lord Darleigh, for that man had been out on a trip to town with a few other club members when he, his cousin, and Lord Payne had left the study that afternoon. His cousin said that they would call him when the time for his punishment of Darleigh came, but Freddy hoped that he and Leonora would be long gone before that.
“I found Jonny’s carriage,” she said, bringing him back to the present, pressing her hands against his chest. “Do you understand how important that is, Freddy?”
“What condition is it in?” he asked, excitement making him sit up straighter. “Was it damaged at all? Could you tell what happened to your brother?”
“There’s not a scratch on it,” she said, oblivious to his physical discomfort as she shifted in his lap. “It’s in perfect condition. You were there when Sir Gerard told me it was stolen.”
“We’ve known it was a lie,” he said. “Or at least we suspected as much. But now we have confirmation. Your brother didn’t crash his carriage, or take a turn too fast. He was set upon.”
“Wouldn’t there be blood on the carriage seats?” Leonora asked. “I saw nothing like that. Perhaps he was killed elsewhere?”
“Or my cousin has a very good valet,” Freddy countered. “I know my own can remove just about any stain you put in front of him. He’d grumble about being asked to clean a carriage, but I have no doubt Gerard has a man who is loyal enough to keep secrets. Else he’d have been brought to the authorities by now.”
“And we’ve already seen,” Leonora said, running her fingers through his hair, “that your cousin has far-reaching influence. People are frightened of him, and that means they are afraid of crossing him, as well. When he asks them to look the other way, they do it.”
Freddy thought back to that afternoon and his cousin’s words. “I suppose you’re right, but it’s disheartening to know he doesn’t care about the difference between fear and loyalty.”
“He’s a bully,” Leonora said firmly. “A bully who is capable of finding out what one loves most and using it against you.”
The threats against Leonora rose in his mind and Freddy’s jaw tightened. He was damned if he’d let himself be used in that way by his cousin. He’d already killed one man. Was he really willing to kill another just to keep that secret?
“I won’t let him hurt you, Nora,” Freddy said, pulling her hard against him. Kissing her with the ferocity that had been lurking beneath the surface all afternoon. “Even if you decide not to marry me when this is all over, I promise you that I will keep you safe.”
Despite her misgivings about marriage, Leonora knew that she would never love another like she loved him. And suddenly she wanted to capture every bit of happiness she could before she had to say good-bye.
“I need you, Leonora,” Freddy said hoarsely, beginning to rise from the chair.
“Stop,” she said sharply. “Let’s stay here. In the chair.”
He looked into her eyes and saw desire and daring there. “All right,” he said, taking her face in his hand and rubbing his thumb along her lower lip. “We’ll stay here.”
With a catlike smile, she rose up and unbuttoned the back of her gown, letting the bodice fall, then pushing the rest of it over her hips and down to the floor. His eyes went straight to where the tops of her breasts mounded above her stays, and unable to keep his hands off her, he unthreaded the laces and removed the constricting garment. Giving a little sigh at being freed from the tight stays, she bent a little and taking her shift by the hem she pulled it up and over her head until she was standing before him in nothing but her garters and stockings.
Freddy wasn’t sure where he wanted to start as he took in every glorious exposed inch of her. When he reached out to touch her, she batted his hand away.
“Not yet,” she said with a raised brow. “You don’t touch until I tell you you can touch.”
He swallowed. He was going to like this game. “Yes, ma’am.”
The obedience made her happy, he could see it in the way her lush lips curved upward.
Moving closer, she leaned forward and slipped her fingers into the soft folds of his cravat, and finding the jeweled pin there, unfastened it and set it aside. Then taking the end of his carefully knotted neckcloth, she untied it, and slowly, carefully, unwound it from his neck. Moving to kneel on his lap, she leaned forward to kiss the hollow below his Adam’s apple.
“Lovely,” she whispered, running her finger down and over the exposed skin at the neck of his shirt. There was just enough room on either side of his hips in the large chair for her to place her knees there. Rising up on her knees, she brought her breasts up to the same level as his mouth, and when she lifted one plump globe to his lips, Freddy couldn’t resist touching his tongue to the tip. Her sharp intake of breath let him know that despite her calling of the shots she was not unaffected by their little game.
Moving to her other side, to suckle it, he slid his hands over the silky skin of her torso and held her still for his ministrations. She gasped, but not to be outdone, she slid her hand down to where his hardness threatened to burst from his breeches, and rubbed a not quite steady hand over it. And Freddy lost the rhythm of his suckling.
“God, Freddy,” she exhaled as he moved his hips out a bit in the chair, so that his phallus was at just the right angle to brush against the apex of her thighs. Using her thigh muscles, she moved up and down, while he worshipped her breasts, and when the pressure became too great, he pushed her back a little and unfastened the fall of his breeches, allowing his cock to spring forth.
She moved forward and down a little to bring the head into contact with her core and they both gasped with the pleasure of it. Rubbing himself in her wetness, he stroked his thumb over her bud of pleasure and Leonora jerked, gasping.. When it became almost too much to bear, Freddy took her hips in his hands and thrust up a little, his cock poised at her entrance.
The tease of her slick heat threatened his weakening control.
“My God, that’s good,” he said against her breast. “I need to be all the way inside you, Nora. Now.”
Her breath coming in short gasps, she lowered her weight on her knees, and while he slowly pressed upward, she took him into her body. When he was fully seated they stilled.
Savoring the feel of it.
Then, just when Freddy thought his control would snap, she rose up a little on her knees, every inch marked with delicious friction. She lowered again on a gasp and then up, setting a rhythm as old as time.
He strained to keep himself from letting go, determined to make it good for her.
But it was almost more than he c
ould bear. The silk of her skin, the warm heat clasping his prick, the scents and sounds of their lovemaking were all pushing him toward the edge.
Finally, on a downstroke, Leonora broke rhythm and, with a sharp gasp, spasmed around him, her movements erratic as the ecstasy of the climax took over. Finally allowing himself to let go, Freddy thrust into her, gripping her hips in hands that trembled with desire. They moved together in a frenzy until, with a shout, he stiffened and emptied himself within her.
A few minutes later, feeling as if his legs were made of jelly, he rose from the chair with Leonora in his arms and carried her to the bed, where he somehow managed to pull back the counterpane and deposit her on the sheets. Keeping his gaze on her, he fastened the fall of his breeches
“That was interesting,” she said with a kittenish grin. “I don’t think I quite knew what I was starting there.”
Moving to sit on the edge of the bed, he whistled softly. “If that was a first attempt, then you are a very good beginner, love.”
A shadow moved into her eyes. “Of course it was a first attempt,” she said with a frown. “I hardly go around seducing gentlemen every day.”
A pang in the vicinity of his heart made him reach out to take her hand. “Of course not. I didn’t mean that. Only that it was quite well done. That’s all.”
Her eyes still troubled, she nodded. “I saw something like it in a book once.”
That was surprising. And fascinating. “Do you still have it?”
A blush crept into her cheeks. “Of course not,” she said, her expression reminding him of a disapproving schoolmarm. “It was in a shop. I wandered into a section where ladies weren’t allowed. But as you know, I never was much of a one for such restrictions.”
He laughed softly. “No, you never were, were you?”
She reached out and stroked a lock of hair from his forehead. “I thought about demanding that the proprietor let me purchase it just like any other customer. But I decided it wouldn’t be worth the unhappiness it would cause my father. He did try to keep me on a tight leash in those days. Before he lost all illusions of reining me in, that is.”
“Poor fellow,” Freddy said, only half joking. “I think your father and your brother both worried far more about you than you can possibly have imagined.”
Looking down at her hands, Leonora smiled sadly. “I did give my poor brother a difficult time of it, didn’t I? I never meant to. Only to do what I thought I should be entitled to do as a human being. Not a lady or a gentleman. A person.”
He touched her lightly on the cheek, and she turned into the caress like a cat seeking a stroke. “I know you did,” he said softly. “And I feel sure that Jon did, too. He once lamented your pigheadedness, but in the same breath he expressed just how proud he was of you for never backing down from a fight you thought worth fighting.”
She looked up, her eyes shrinking. “Truly?” she asked, sitting up to move closer to him. “Did he really say such a thing?”
“He did,” Freddy said with a soft kiss. “He loved you. And I know he’d be bursting with pride to know how far you’ve come in the investigation into his death.”
“I’ve found very little,” she said with a sigh. “All we know for sure is that Jonathan is dead.”
“Not all,” he responded with seriousness. “You also know that my cousin had something to do with it, and that someone is keen to cover up the true nature of the death. I should say that’s a great deal more than anyone else who’s looked into this mess knows.”
“I suppose,” she said without any real enthusiasm. “And we found the carriage, which proves definitively that there was no accident. I wonder if Lord Payne knew the carriage was there.”
At the mention of Payne, Freddy frowned. “What has Payne to do with it? Besides being my cousin’s right-hand man?”
“He saw me leaving the stables this afternoon. Just after I found Jonny’s carriage,” she responded with a shrug. “I could see that he thought I was up to something, but I was able to evade him and get up here, thank goodness.” She grimaced. “In a completely unrelated detail, he had a bit of spinach from lunch stuck between his teeth.” She shuddered. “If he weren’t already a frightening man based on his personality, that bit of spinach sealed his fate as completely ineligible for me.”
Freddy was diverted by the spinach comment, but the real detail in Leonora’s speech that caught his attention was Payne’s appearance in the barn. “Do you think he suspected something? Or was he simply being his usual charming self?”
Her brow furrowed. “Perhaps I was simply feeling guilty because I’d been putting my nose where it didn’t belong,” she acceded, “but I do think there was more intimidation in his demeanor than he usually displays.”
Debating whether to tell her about what Lord Payne and his cousin had told him that afternoon, Freddy finally decided against it.
Given her fright that afternoon, Leonora already had quite a bit to worry about.
“I think I’ll have a bath before dinner,” he said suddenly, rising from the bed with reluctance. “Perhaps you can sleep now?”
To his amusement, her eyes were already half closed. “Just for a few minutes,” she said, her voice trailing off.
At least one of them could rest, Freddy thought wryly.
* * *
“I must speak with you, Miss Craven,” hissed Lady Melisande to Leonora that evening as the ladies made their way to the drawing room after supper.
Leonora had spent the meal listening with half an ear to Lady Summerton’s chatter while her mind was wrestling with what she’d found that afternoon in the stables. There had to be some way for her to confront Sir Gerard about Jonny’s intact curricle without endangering her entire party. But she could think of no way to do it.
Lady Melisande’s attempt to get her attention was a welcome diversion, to say the least. “Of course, Lady Melisande,” she said in a low voice as they stepped into the drawing room behind the others. “Where?”
Her hostess laid a finger over her lips and indicated that Leonora should come with her to the small parlor across the hall where the lady of the house wrote letters. Or so she informed her guests their first night in South Haven.
“I must show Miss Craven the interesting letter I received from my mother this afternoon, ladies,” Lady Melisande said to the room in general as she led Leonora across the hall and shut the door firmly behind them.
“Whatever is the matter?” Leonora asked, noting that the other woman was trembling. “What’s happened?”
Unbidden, the thought of Freddy injured or hurt, or worse, dead, rose into her mind’s eye. She schooled her features and tried not to demand that the other woman tell her at once.
“Miss Craven,” Lady Melisande said hoarsely, “in one hour from now the gentlemen of the Lords of Anarchy are gathering in a large barn on our property so that your fiancé can beat one of the other members into a bloody pulp. I believe my husband means for your fiancé to kill him.”
Leonora stiffened. “What? That’s absurd. Freddy would never agree to such a thing, whether it was bidden by this ridiculous club or not. He is an honorable man and would not fight an unfair fight.”
“Even if my husband and Lord Payne threatened you in order to coerce him into it?” Lady Melisande said sharply. “Because I can assure you my husband will use any means necessary to get his own way. And he long ago realized that you are Lord Frederick Lisle’s weak spot. If you are to stop your fiancé from doing real damage to this other man then you must get him away from here at once.”
It was too much to take in, but Leonora found her brain was working overtime. Perhaps because of the danger inherent in the situation. “Why are you helping me, Lady Melisande?” she demanded of the other woman. “You never showed any particular liking for me, but now you are offering me a way to escape your husband’s machinations. Why?”
“Do you think I enjoy this way of life, Miss Craven?” the other lady demanded. “For I c
an assure you I do not. My husband likes to think he is the king of a tiny kingdom of men willing to do his bidding. But what he really is, is a madman. I intend to see to it that your brother is the last man to die at my husband’s hands. But you must help me to do it.”
“All right,” Leonora said. And together, the ladies came up with a plan. Leonora would have Freddy’s coachman and grooms ready his carriage for them to leave that night. And her aunt would be driven to one of her nearby friends’ estates as soon as possible.
“I do not believe my husband will harm your aunt,” Lady Melisande explained. “He will be angry, but as it’s your aunt and not Lord Frederick’s he will not see her as a valuable pawn in his game.” Which was a relief, since Leonora was unsure whether her aunt would agree to leave on such short notice.
“Now,” Lady Melisande said with authority. “You must go. Hurry. There isn’t much time.”
Mindful of her words, Leonora walked as quickly as she could without drawing attention to herself to the wing of the house where Aunt Hortense had been holding court. For someone who claimed to be at death’s door, she looked fit as a fiddle when Leonora stepped into her bedchamber.
Quickly, she outlined their need to leave at once, a plan which Hortense readily agreed to.
“I have been bored almost to death in this house, gel,” she told Leonora. “I wish you’d asked me to leave sooner!”
Leonora wasn’t sure she and her aunt had been at the same house party, but for the sake of expedience did not say so. “I will see you back in London after you’ve spent a few days resting at Lady Mumford’s home. Will that be agreeable?”
The old woman gave what would in a younger person have been a shrug. “I suppose it will have to do. Clara is a bit of a hypochondriac, but I shall manage to endure it for a few days. Then when I hear from you that the coast is clear I will leave for London.”
Relief washed over Leonora. “Thank you for agreeing so readily, aunt. I was afraid you’d be difficult.”
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