Bugger it, but he should hate these feelings! Throughout the day, he’d been determined to push them aside. He knew it was the right thing to do. She was his friend and, if he wanted her to remain such, he needed to get control over his irrepressible desire. Vin wondered where this new gambling hell was his brothers were going to tonight. Perhaps there he might find someone to vent this frustrating lust on so he might look on Moira in the more brotherly fashion he used to.
Vin eyed Richard askance wondering how he might separate him from Fiona to ask. Hell, perhaps he should ask Fiona herself. He’d wager she’d have no issue with telling him exactly where the club was located!
“You know what red roses mean, don’t you?” Fiona whispered in a defeated tone that drew Vin’s attention. He raised an inquiring brow. “They mean ‘love’. Surely it won’t be long now, I think.”
“Before what?” he asked.
“Before she weds him, of course.” Fiona scowled at her brother. “I know you’ve been gone a long time, Vin, but surely you remember that a gentleman only gives a woman red roses when a proposal is imminent?”
“Aylesbury has already asked to speak with her father, I hear,” Richard confided.
Vin’s heart pounded furiously against his chest as these tidbits of information were revealed. He had sensed it was coming, of course. Anyone with eyes in his head could see Aylesbury was serious in his intentions, but he hadn’t imagined that it would come so soon! Not when he’d just returned. Not when he wanted…no, needed her the most!
Look at me! his mind screamed as Hobbes handed Moira’s cloak to Aylesbury so that he might be the one to hold it for her. He watched in frustration as the fellow again went through his ritual of aiding Moira into the garment. A smooth move that seemed to impress Fiona as she sighed deeply with appreciation at the gesture. Look at me, lovey!
She did not, of course. Moira merely scowled fiercely at Abby as she took Aylesbury’s arm and let him lead her from the room. Instead, it was the marquis who turned and caught Vin’s eye. As he slid his arm around Moira’s waist, Aylesbury tossed him a knowing grin and waggled his brows.
The smug bastard, Vin thought.
Chapter 19
There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one's self, the very meaning of one's soul.
~ Edith Wharton
Later that night
“You weren’t going to come to me tonight, were you?”
Moira peeked out from under her blankets to find Vin framed in her bedroom door. He was still dressed, though not properly. He was wearing loose trousers of Francis’ and a shirt open at the neck and hanging loose about his hips. With his black hair rumpled and day’s growth of beard darkening his jaw, he was devastating and ruggedly handsome in the flickering light of her fire. With a groan, she pulled the blankets back over her head wishing she could hide from him forever. It had been hard enough to do it for the course of one day. The family had still been talking in the parlor when she returned from dinner with Harry, so she had slipped up to her room unnoticed.
And waited.
But no sounds had emerged from below.
“You would let me suffer as you did the other night?” Vin continued gruffly when she didn’t answer.
Would she have gone to him if he needed her? Yes. She couldn’t bear to let him suffer again knowing she could help him. “I would have come,” she mumbled into her pillow.
“When?”
“When you needed me to,” she answered, peeking back over the covers. “I hadn’t heard anything so I thought you might be doing alright.”
“I can’t sleep at all.” Vin wandered into her room, closing the door firmly behind him. The lock snicked loudly in the silence of her chamber.
“Wh-what are you doing?” she stammered in a quavering voice.
“If Mohammed won’t come to the mountain…” he trailed off as he approached the bed and sat on the edge. “I am a weak fool, lovey. A selfish one as well. Now that I know what you can give me, I want more of it.”
Aye, his mind mocked him, but you’ve only a hint of what she could really give you!
Vin forced his thoughts back to the topic at hand. “I know it is beyond improper, but might I lie with you for a bit?”
Wordlessly, Moira scooted to the far edge of the bed offering her consent. It pleased her that he liked to be with her even if he considered his reasons selfish ones. She did not. She felt sometimes she was the selfish one for taking what she could from him when he was unaware. At least this way she could be with him without it being a guilty pleasure.
Vin eased down on top of the covers but when Moira chided him against doing so on such a cold night, he hesitantly slipped under the covers to lie on his back staring up at the silken canopy over the bed. He was very aware of her by his side. His nerves were alive in her presence and he knew even taking on this insanity would be a test of his control. Perhaps he wouldn’t be able to sleep at all knowing she was just an arm’s length away. However, he decided a sleepless night lost in the agony of unfulfilled desire was better than a night spent in torment of another kind.
Moira stared hard at the canopy to keep her eyes from straying to the man at her side. The silence was stiff and uncomfortable…for her anyway. She had felt all day that she would never be able to look him in the eye again after that morning’s debacle. She practically pounced on him! Despite what Abby said, any man would react as he initially had when a woman leaped on him first thing in the morning. His secondary reaction was the one that plagued her all day.
“Vin, I…”
“I’m sorry about…”
They turned their heads and looked at each other. “You first.” They again spoke at the same time and a hesitant chuckle sounded from each of them. The tension engulfing them melted away.
Vin’s hand took hers under the blanket and for a long while they lay there holding hands, each lost to their own thoughts before he quietly spoke.
“When I joined the guards and we saw our first fighting at Alexandria, I knew I was going to see things, do things that I had never imagined in my whole life. I think Jason and Richard felt the same way. But we were men among men. We could not speak of those fears. I could not speak of those fears, or of the disgust with the things we had to do. Even to them. My closest friends.” He fell silent. She waited, holding his hand in hers. Giving it a gentle squeeze of encouragement. She knew he had more to say. “I killed people, lovey. Many of them. And I was good at it, too. I know there are men who enjoy it, but I never did. It was my duty and I carried it out. I saw men die in front of me. Men I had come to consider friends. I know many of us had similar thoughts about the whole thing, but it wasn’t something men could talk about among themselves.
“I loved being able to write to you. All those years, I could tell you everything I could not say to anyone else. I gave you all of it and you wrote me back with words so understanding and compassionate that I felt you really could understand.” Vin rolled onto his side, crooking one arm beneath his head so he could face her and Moira did the same. He reached out and took her other hand in his. “That’s when you became a true friend to me, lovey. Before that it was mainly because of Jason, but with those letters, you became so much more. They meant a lot to me.”
“They meant a lot to me as well.”
“I’m sorry about his morning,” he said finally. “You were dreaming, half-asleep. I took advantage of that. It’s just…”
“Been a long time?” she finished for him and they both laughed again.
“I don’t mean to vent it on you.” He did, truthfully, though he couldn’t tell her so without again putting a strain on their more important friendship. He was disgusted with himself for his lack of restraint but Vin knew he had to get it under control, was determined to get it under control! He didn’t want to drive her away from him again as he had today.
I don’t mind, Moira thou
ght but could not find the courage to say the words aloud. Instead, she offered, “I would do anything to help you through this.”
That softly spoken ‘anything’ sent a multitude of scenarios dashing through his mind. Each one sexual in nature but he ruthlessly pushed them away knowing that Moira did not intend her words in that context. “I hate that, you know.”
“That you need help?” she asked perceptively.
“That everyone thinks I need help. They stumble over themselves to ‘help’.”
“And it drives you mad.”
“It does,” he admitted. “I can’t talk to anyone. It’s awkward. They’ll say inconsequential things that make me mad. Why can I talk to you? I actually say complete sentences to you.”
“You like me better?”
Vin chuckled seeing her wide, toothy grin in the dim lighting. “I guess I must. I need to be with you right now, lovey. I hate to be so needy.”
“You think it’s unmanly.”
“Again, you’re spot on.” He shook his head. “I’m not a coward, lovey. I have faced things…I can take pain without cowering or begging for mercy. But, it’s as if I see my salvation right in front of me and I just have to take it whether it comes as a blow to my manhood or not. You give me what I can’t find anywhere else. For some reason, your presence makes the rest recede away from when everyone else pulls it toward me.”
Moira’s heart ached for him. She understood what being a man in Scotland meant. She had been raised among them. Scotsmen were descended from a warrior race. They did not show weakness. Even in this day and age, some were still so immersed in that mindset they couldn’t even court a woman with words of love and tenderness. Still, his words sounded like love to her, why couldn’t he see it that way as well?
“You can take what you need from me. I’d give anything to see you happy again. I’d give it gladly.”
Again, Vin read a double entendre in her words and almost shuddered as desire flowed through him again. She could not know how her words affected him! How they emerged as an invitation for him to plunder her for all the things that would truly make him happy. He shifted to relieve the pressure on his painful erection and forced the lust away. He should leave before things got out of hand once again. He knew it was the right and best thing to do, but somehow could not force himself to rise. Instead, he just looked into the warmth of her eyes, knowing there wasn’t a single place on earth that he would rather be.
“You missed the news tonight while you were out,” he announced, determined to change the course of his thoughts by changing the subject.
“Really? What news?”
“A messenger came. It seems Queen Victoria has decided to honor me for my ‘sacrifices’.”
“In what way?”
“She honors me for my service to the Crown with the Order of Bath for military service and also the Royal Victorian Order.”
“She did the same for Richard,” Moira told him. “She gave him a titular lordship of Glen Cairn as well.”
“That explains a lot.” He had heard Richard addressed as ‘lord’ several times recently. Strange thing as Richard was a third son. “She granted me Grandfather’s title of Lord Clarendon as well.” The title had been his maternal grandfather’s but the Crown assumed it on his death lacking an heir directly through the male line. “She decided to allow the title to descend through the maternal line and, since Francis already has so many titles, gave it to me instead.”
“Lord Clarendon? I thought your grandmother always called herself Lady Hyde?”
“Hyde was their surname. It’s my middle name as well, you know, which makes this all seem as if fate is stepping in. But the actual title is a Baronet of Clarendon,” he explained. “I could go by Lord MacKintosh if I wanted to, but I think Clarendon offers more to my ancestors, don’t you?”
“Yes, I imagine it feels good to have the title back in the family.”
Vin nodded. “I’ve also received the lands that came with it, including the estate in Essex where Mother was born and the townhouse on Half Moon Street in London where Grandmamma lives.” He was now a Lord in his own right, also a holder of a seat in the House of Lords.
“That’s wonderful,” she said sincerely. “It will be a responsibility for you but I think you will enjoy the challenge…my lord.”
“Never do that, lovey,” he scolded lightly. “But, aye, I think I will as well. I might go ahead to King’s Retreat, I think. I’ve been thinking of getting away from town anyway. I need to get away. The noises in the city set me off. The crack of a whip…”
Moira felt the quiver run through his body and knew the sounds of the teamsters whipping up their horses echoed those sounds that preceded the whippings he had taken. Many if the scars on his back were any indication. “I cannot imagine your pain. The memories must be horrifying.”
“I don’t want your pity, lovey.”
“It’s not pity,” she whispered, running her hand up under his shirt so she could feel the ridged skin. He tensed but she continued. “It’s sorrow. Sorrow for what you have suffered. For what haunts you still. This one though…” She ran a hand around to the longer deeper scar in the front. “It’s not too pretty.”
They both chuckled and again the tension dissipated.
“I think it would be a mistake to leave,” she went on drawing her hand away. “You’ve had enough solitude in your life. Whether they understand you or not, you need your family right now. If you want to go somewhere, go to Glen Cairn and take the lads with you. I know Dorian is back at Cambridge but the others would go with you.”
“I’m sure they’d rather enjoy the Season here or in London,” he scoffed dismissively.
“You could, too.”
“I don’t think so.”
Moira opened her mouth to argue the point but thought better of it. “Well, when Evie and Francis finish with me in London, I know they intend to go home. They want to settle in and raise their family at Glen Cairn. They want more children.”
Ah, that’s right, he thought, hearing only the first of her words. Eve said she was taking Moira to London for the Season soon. Taking her there so she might find a husband. His heart tightened sending a jolt of pain through him. He didn’t want her to go. He didn’t want to lose her.
Silence reigned for several minutes.
“Are you going to marry him?” he finally asked, though he felt he already knew the answer and he wasn’t disappointed when she responded.
“Yes, unless a better offer comes along.”
Ha! According to Fiona, there was no better offer to be had.
“Do you love him?”
Moira stared at Vin through the increasing darkness in the room. The fire had begun to die down and she wished she could see his expression. His voice was tight as if he dreaded the answer. She felt hope rise in her once more that perhaps Evie, Abby and Harry were right.
Maybe he was coming to care for her as more than a friend and he simply hadn’t realized it yet. Still, the prospect of another disappointment kept those hopes close to her aching heart rather than racing to the stars.
“I like him very much. I think we could be happy with one another.”
“How can you like him?” he scoffed, though he felt something akin to relief that she hadn’t said yes. “He’s so…”
She laughed. “Women like that in a man.”
A snort of reluctant laughter escaped him. “I know. Fiona fancies the fellow as well.”
“Really?” Her brows rose in surprise. She wondered briefly if Harry knew that but Vin went on.
“What of the other?”
He realized it now, what he was feeling. It was jealousy. Not simple envy, but full-blown jealousy. For an unknown man, no less. This man she loved. It was misplaced, of course. Surely, this covetousness for her person would ease once he’d managed to relieve himself of his sexual frustrations.
“Won’t you wait for him?”
“Sometimes I think I should.”
/> Vin held her hand in his squeezing tightly. He liked that idea. Clearly, the man didn’t deserve her anyway. And if she continued to wait, she wouldn’t leave him so soon.
Not liking where the conversation was heading, she changed the subject. “I saw Mr. Doyle’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in your room last night. Are you enjoying it?”
“I am. It will take me some time to catch up on all the books I’ve missed these last years,” he allowed her to lead his thoughts away. “Are there any in particular I should read?”
Long into the night, they talked of books and plays. Operas neither had yet seen. The talk was inconsequential but soothing, carrying them until sleep descended.
* * *
Moira awoke in the predawn hours with a moan of desire prompted by the most erotic dream she’d ever had. Vin’s body molded to her own. His hands cupped her breasts as they massaged them. She quivered as the feelings lingered and raised her hand to soothe away the ache of her swollen breasts. But a hand was already there!
His hard body spooned behind her. One arm curved back curved under and around her holding her tightly against him as his fingers squeezed her breast through her nightgown. He captured her swollen nipple and rolling it until she thought she would cry out in agony against the sweet torture of his touch. His other hand was on her hip pulling her back toward him as he ground the hot length of his erection against her body.
Another shudder raked her as she thrust back against him in mindless desire. Scorching lips sucked and nipped on the side of her neck as he pulled up her nightgown until it was at her waist. His hand slid over her bare belly to tease at the curls before slipping between her legs to cup her trembling core. Moira gasped in surprise before a keening moan escaped her and she moved sinuously against his palm pressing a hand over each of his to keep them in place. Arching her neck to the side, she wordlessly invited further exploration by his mouth.
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