It was just that she’d admired him in her memory for so long, she reasoned. All these years she’d idolized him … like a dream-stricken virgin, laughable as that might be. Now here he was, in the flesh. A thief and possibly a liar.
The scar upon her chest and abdomen stretched rigid and unbending beneath her clothes as she dug deeper within the wardrobe, pulling out a pair of brown trousers and a union suit.
“Your Ladyship…”
The reverberations of his deep voice spread a tingling, warm flush of sensation through her pelvis and breasts. A resurrection of yearnings better left dead.
She did her best to ignore him. After finding a pair of canvas y-back braces to help hold up the trousers—to compensate for the difference in girth between her late husband and her guest—Felicity stopped at the trunk to fish out some men’s stockings, black and ankle-high, then joined Nick beside the bed. She was relieved he’d tied the sheet around his waist to prevent any further accidental unveilings.
“There. These should suffice until the maid washes your other clothes and repairs the rips and tears.” Felicity laid them out on the mattress, her gaze passing over the sleeping dog. It had warmed her heart when she first stepped in, to see Nick teasing with the pit bull as if he were a friend. His affection for the forlorn creature was apparent. “Can I get anything for your dog?”
“Some beef or chicken broth. Clooney said he couldn’t eat solid food for a few days yet. But first …” Nick caught her wrist. “You can get something for me.” His fingertip found the opening in her glove again—a hot, erotic pressure against her throbbing pulse. Her thighs weakened as he nudged deeper inside, finding her life-line while his remaining fingers clasped tighter around her wrist. “I want to meet the man I encountered in the greenhouse. We have unfinished business.”
The rain had stopped and the clock echoed in the resulting silence. Breath shallow and shaky, Felicity glanced down at her companion’s bare feet—long, large, and powerful. Just like the rest of him. His finger continued its pressure along her palm, winding her stomach into dueling knots of discomfort and pleasure.
“He’s … indisposed … at the moment,” she mumbled.
She expected an argument, but Nick was no longer even listening. He was too intent on trying to peel off her glove. She jerked free and put some distance between them.
“Really, Lord Thornton.” She resituated her glove and rubbed her wrist. “Such familiarity is highly improper.”
He smirked, having the gall to look pleased with himself. “Nick. And you have the softest skin I’ve ever touched. I shan’t apologize for wanting to see it bared.”
Felicity made the mistake of glancing at the sheet gathered between his thighs and found him every bit as aroused as her.
“A pole,” she blurted.
Nick looked at his lap. His tousled hair draped over one broad shoulder as he tilted his head to meet her gaze. “You flatter me.”
Biting her tongue, Felicity whirled around and strode to the trunk, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of seeing he’d disarmed her. “I mean you need a pole … a cane. So you might walk about.” She dragged a stick-horse from the space between the trunk and the wall then returned to him while forcing her eyes not to stray again. “This should be perfectly suited for you. Seeing as you like miniature horses so much.” She held it out, tamping a smile as she thought upon the bog pony in her stables.
Amusement danced across his face and he took the plush horse’s head in his hand and propped the stick end on the floor between his feet. Gold and silver ribbons streamed out from behind the white stallion’s ears to resemble a mane.
Nick twirled them around his forefinger. “I must say, Lady Lonsdale. You are a queen among hostesses.”
Felicity stifled the stubborn giggle wanting to flourish, envisioning her lips bolted to her teeth.
“And I suppose this makes me a princess among guests, aye?” Nick asked, holding up the girlishly embellished horse. A grin spread over his face, stealing Felicity’s breath. His white teeth shone like a luminous beacon breaking out from the dark gold whiskers.
Felicity’s scar, which so often was chilled and numb, seemed to melt into the skin around it—a tickly sensation. She couldn’t stop herself. Her own smile broke free. And it felt wonderful … foreign and intimate.
Acknowledging her reaction with an appraising glance, Nick looked around the room. “So, you play with toys. Do you play dress-up as well?”
Felicity gulped. Was he referring to her past? Had he indeed recognized her and was baiting her? “I-I am not sure what you mean.”
“The room. It looks as if someone has been playing dress-up. The shoes, the trappings.” He gestured to the opened trunk brimming with hats and scarves.
Felicity exhaled, relieved. “My daughters. They live here with me.” She couldn’t resist the urge to test against an association with Landrigan one last time. “Although you already know that, don’t you?”
He narrowed his eyes. “How could I? I’ve not seen anyone but you and your servants. You have daughters? I don’t remember you sharing such information with my sister.”
Measuring the sincere confusion in his expression, Felicity continued. “One is thirteen and the other is about to be seven. It’s the youngest girl you have to thank for your cane.”
“Hmm. So … why would you put a wounded man in their playroom?”
“It is the biggest bed in the castle; and Clooney wanted you next door to his chambers, in case you needed him in the night. You might prefer to stay up here today and let the servants tend you. You will have a difficult time getting down the stairs, being on the fourth floor.”
Grinning, Nick batted the stick-horse’s ears. “Well, I’ll make myself at home, then. I’ve forgotten how much I enjoyed living in a castle.”
The thought of him becoming an everyday fixture left Felicity’s confidence flailing like a drowning child. Already she’d been fantasizing of him coming to her rescue again. The longer he stayed, the more fanciful she would become. And fancy only led to weakness. Who could trust a thief, after all?
“You shan’t be here long enough for it to feel like home, Lord Thornton. I would ask that you leave as soon as we conduct our business, when you and your dog are physically able. My girls have been lacking a father for some years now. I won’t have them getting attached to strange men who would but leave their hearts broken.” Though she secretly wondered if it was her nieces she was worried for.
“As you wish, Your Ladyship.” There was a pinch to his voice that hadn’t been there earlier.
Felicity started for the opened door but paused at the threshold, fighting a remorseful tug in her chest. “There is a hip bath and water closet down the hall, and some gauze for bandages. If you require help washing off and dressing your wound, I shall send Clooney in.” She stared at the corridor’s swirling blue walls, awaiting an answer.
“Why send Clooney? I think the lady in men’s clothing—who left me in need of bandages to begin with—should be the one to help me dress them.”
Her guest’s pointed challenge set her pulse hammering. She stepped out and shut the door behind her, leaning against it. So, he knew it was her that night in the greenhouse. That’s what those innuendoes had been about. He’d been trying to get her to admit it. Well better he know that, than her real secrets.
Before she could even contemplate the effect he’d had on her nerves, she noticed Clooney waiting at the end of the corridor next to the stairway, holding her shawl.
“Donal is here,” he said from one side of his mouth, biting his pipe as she joined him. “He’s in the Doll’s Garden with Binata and the little knots.”
Felicity slung the shawl around her shoulders, taking the stairs two at a time. “I’ve already asked Binata not to let him in the greenhouse. He could be planting more fungi as we speak.”
Clooney picked up his pace behind her, silent.
“And I don’t approve of him being around my niec
es. You and Binata both know this. Do my solicitudes mean so little?”
“He has every right to visit Binata. What am I to do?”
Felicity came to a full stop, gripping the railing lest her calm exterior shatter. “Next time, bring the girls inside with you.”
Clooney shook his head, sliding out his pipe. “Their hands were soiled. They were busy planting things. You know you can trust Binata. She’ll not leave them alone with him.”
Felicity’s descent resumed. “I would like for you to go to the stables. Stand guard over the horses until Landrigan is gone.” She tied the shawl in place at her neck. “And later this morn, I want you to go into town. Wire some of your acquaintances in London. Be discreet … but find out what you can about our Nicolas Thornton. He’s offered me capital, but I doubt without his father’s purse he can afford even a flagon of ale. I need to know if he’s truly estranged from his family, and why.”
Swearing an oath, Nick left the buttons open on the lawn shirt’s placket, deciding the union suit beneath could suffice for modesty. Just below his pant leg, his bandage bulged at his knee. He’d done a careless job of dressing the wound, not even bothering with the salve set out for him. But his mind had been preoccupied.
He knew the countess had been the one that attacked him in the greenhouse. Yet there was something beyond that. A familiarity which he just couldn’t place.
He winced at the needling desire he’d felt upon touching her soft skin. Was this how desperate he’d become? That he’d be craving the attentions of a woman almost twenty years older than him like he had in his youth?
In truth, he was desperate. Coming here was a mistake of which desperation had been the driving force. For two years he’d been celibate while trying to reach his dead wife and baby. He’d disconnected from any healthy human interactions, obsessed with the afterlife instead, in hopes to reconnect with what he’d taken for granted … to make up for his mistakes by any means possible.
He’d carried Mina’s ring with him ever since the funeral. Most supernatural folklore suggested that having something treasured which belonged to the deceased could help bridge the gap. It had just seemed simpler to make it into an earring, so he’d have it on his person always.
But after countless disappointments with counterfeit séances and fraudulent soothsayers, he’d fallen prey to the darker side of obsession, dabbling in the very drug which contributed to his wife’s death.
The delusions he had while under the laudanum’s influence—though some were macabre and terrifying—were for the most part a sweet and delicious torment. He could touch Mina’s face as she kissed him. He could hold his son as he cried with a burst of healthy lungs. Using opium brought Nick closer to his wife and child in death than he’d ever been in life.
The addiction had almost destroyed him. Until his father found Nick at his lowest point—about to sell his body to a reputedly abusive man just for one more fix.
He’d been at a seedy tavern moments away from going into a back room, his mind a confused haze, his body taut and nauseous, heart racked with guilt and degradation. Nothing had mattered but finding oblivion. But his father found him first—came in and laid out Nick’s would be supplier with a fist to the jaw. Then he dragged Nick to a hotel and weaned him off the drug. So quiet … so passive.
So deeply disappointed.
His gentle condemnation still stuck in Nick’s mind to this very day: “I would rather see my son dead, than beneath that man’s thumb.” Granted, Nick had been going through withdrawals—muscle cramps, cravings, nausea and anxiety—and couldn’t remember the exact wording of the statement. But that was the gist of it. And it made sense, as his father had been beaten and abused by his own step-father years before.
In Nick’s case, however, it wasn’t abuse his father referred to. It was Nick’s selfish and weak choices.
A shudder, laced with shame and revulsion, jolted Nick’s spine on the memory. He would never again feel worthy of his family’s love or forgiveness. No matter how many years cushioned the downfall. When his father had tried to get him to come home, Nick couldn’t face his gentle mother, his aunt and uncle, and most of all his sister and brother. Julian had everything Nick had lost. Willow, the girl they’d grown up alongside and both pined over, was now his wife. Together they had a healthy, growing son and were expecting another child very soon. Although Nick wanted such bliss for his brother, he wasn’t a strong enough man not to envy it. Not to be bitter.
So, Nick had run, farther and faster than ever before, to escape it all.
But now … blast it. The dowager somehow knew his name. No doubt she would report his presence to his father, along with his unscrupulous behavior. That’s all he needed, for his family to find out where he was so he could disappoint them once again.
Perhaps he could fix things by being charming and asking the dowager for her discretion. It wouldn’t be easy, considering that each time he touched her skin or smelled that fragrance she wore, he wanted to be a hell of a lot more than charming.
Growling, he limped to the window with his infernal princess stick. His father walked with a cane and a limp … all he needed was another reminder of him and how monumentally Nick had failed in his eyes.
His gaze swept across the landscape where a stone fence enclosed the estate, including the stables and henhouse to the east. Outside of the fence, a roof of emerald conifers, ancient oaks, and needled pine trees surrounded the castle and spanned beyond vision, unlike the meadows and clearings in which Nick had grown up.
The Thornton estate had been vast and open. Other than sparse thickets here and there, some harboring hot water springs or ponds, the only greenery other than shrubs grew within a garden surrounded by glass. Yet the townhouse and castle bloomed with life, always thriving with galas, gaming, and social events.
Nick’s every action had been under the scrutiny of a thousand monocles. And he’d resented it. In truth, it had inspired him to be a rebel. Why not give them a show, after all? Why not seduce each and every woman with enough cushion within her bodice and purse to soften his self-hate.
After the tragedies stemming from his marriage, he’d developed a new appreciation for quiet and privacy. It would be heaven to live in a natural fortress such as this. So far away from the outside world, in a sanctuary of anonymity with no one to play judge or jury.
Some movement below caught his eye and he saw Lady Lonsdale and Clooney striding along a dappled path toward her greenhouse where the stable hands were polishing the new panel glass they’d installed.
Nick glanced over his shoulder at Johnny Boy. The same young men had come in earlier and carried the dog downstairs while Nick washed up and dressed. Due to Johnny’s cumbersome weight, they utilized a canvas stretcher with the edges sewn to casings through which wooden poles were slid. They kept him on the first floor long enough to lap up some broth and relieve himself. Now the pit bull laid on the mattress, content and sleeping on fresh-changed bedclothes.
One thing Nick had noticed this morn: being small in number, the dowager’s servants took on double assignations—the housekeeper was also the cook, and the maid served as the laundress. There was no butler, but the two stable hands made good substitutes. In fact, when combined with Clooney and Binata’s efforts, the countess’s domestic servants had woven their variant talents into a tapestry of proficiency which ran the large estate without a glitch.
At the moment, since they were all busy with their tasks, this would be the perfect opportunity for Nick to have a look around.
He wanted to learn more about this dowager. Such a shock that she’d borne children; her body didn’t bode the markings of a mother. Least from what he could tell with her clothes on. Perhaps they’d belonged to the Earl from another marriage.
Regardless … the woman had an air of sadness about her. A wounded bird knows its own kind. And she appeared to be in some sort of financial straits. She’d certainly warmed at the prospect of money.
And now h
e was to help her with his grand fortune.
A muscle in his jaw jumped. He would’ve laughed at the irony, had he not felt so unsettled about the lie.
But why should he be? This woman was nothing to him.
So what if he hadn’t a punt to his name. She didn’t know that. All she knew was that his family was wealthy. That would sustain his claim.
Catching sight of her slender frame as she slipped into the greenhouse, Nick scowled. The lie need only last long enough to gain him access to her colleague, Professor Blackwood.
His first order of business would be to convince Lady Lonsdale not to talk to his family or give away his whereabouts until he could glean the information he needed from the professor. Then he would disappear once more.
This time for good.
Chapter Five
Nutmeg wagged her tail and licked Felicity’s shoe as she stepped out of the chill morning air into the humid two-and-a-half-acre greenhouse. “Good morning, sweetheart.” Felicity bent to nuzzle the Irish Setter’s cold, wet nose. How fortuitous that the dog slept with the girls three nights ago. She shuddered to think what would’ve happened if their gentle pet had been roaming the grounds.
Felicity pulled tiny leaves from the setter’s silky, spice-colored fur. “My, you’re so aromatic today. You’ve been in the basil again, haven’t you?”
The dog’s tongue lolled out from one side of her grin. Her petite feet pranced as she tried to wrap her tall, lithe body around Felicity’s legs and thighs. The hound had been the runt of a litter four years ago, and was adopted by a cat when her mother abandoned her. Nutmeg now lived under the perpetual delusion that she was herself a feline. It was how she had won her name, as she loved to come into the herb garden and trundle through the spices while her “mother” rolled in catnip. The two animals were inseparable, and an odd pairing considering the disparity of their sizes.
Two yellow eyes peered out from a cluster of orange nasturtium.
The Glass Butterfly Page 4