Masked Desires (Unmasking Prometheus, #3)

by Bold, Diana

  “Of course, I do,” Morgan assured him. “Why don’t you go ask her?” He smiled at the rest of the boys, who looked a little crestfallen. “Why don’t the rest of you help me move the furniture?”

  Glad to have been given a chore as well, the rest of them all set to work moving the furniture into the center of the room.

  With a bemused smile, Morgan opened a can of ocean-blue paint.

  He’d just finished prepping the largest wall when he looked up to see Fiona standing in the doorway, staring at him with a look he couldn’t quite decipher. When he met her gaze, she ducked her head a bit bashfully. The memory of the kiss they’d shared overwhelmed him, and he could tell she was thinking about it, too.

  Blushing, she cleared her throat. “Henry said you asked him to help you. I just thought I’d check in and make sure they weren’t bothering you.” She lifted a hand and gestured to the boys, who were still industriously organizing everything into the center of the room. “But you seem to have them well in hand.”

  He nodded, realizing that he’d actually been able to do several things right where this woman was concerned today. She was looking at him with delight and cautious optimism. Perhaps even the beginnings of trust? Whatever it was, he’d take it. Because he very much wanted to see that look in her eyes again.

  “You do so well with the children,” she said. “We are all so grateful to have you here.”

  “There’s nowhere I’d rather be,” he told her, and he found that he meant it.

  LATER THAT NIGHT, MORGAN stood in the shadows of the hall, watching with an aching heart as Fiona mothered his children. He’d been caught up in his work and hadn’t realized that it was so late.

  Fiona had obviously put the rest of the children to bed, and now, she sat in the sitting room with Samuel, Hannah, and Felicity, reading them a book. Felicity was in her arms, the child’s blonde head resting against her cheek, her thumb in her mouth. Samuel and Hannah sat by Fiona’s feet, staring up at her as though she’d hung the moon.

  He’d thought they were coping well lately with Anne’s death, but seeing them with Fiona made him realize how much they’d been needing a maternal feminine touch.

  Samuel, especially, stared at Fiona with such longing...

  Little Felicity had never known her mother’s love, and Hannah had only been two when Anne died and hardly remembered her. But Samuel remembered Anne and missed her desperately. Morgan could never give his children back what they’d lost when Anne had been taken from them, but, for the first time, it suddenly occurred to them that they didn’t have to be motherless forever. He could marry again.

  The mere thought seemed disloyal to Anne’s memory, but now that he’d had it, he couldn’t unthink it. In fact, he knew many people expected it of him. The children needed someone besides Meggie in their lives. They’d blossomed in the last few weeks they’d been coming to Brookhaven, and he had Fiona to thank for it.

  His gaze settled on Fiona’s fiery hair, and a surge of attraction and affection surged through him, stunning him with its ferocity. What was it about this woman that entranced him so deeply? And more to the point, what, if anything, should he do about it?

  Feeling suddenly strangely voyeuristic, he cleared his throat and entered the room. They all looked up at him, his children’s faces lighting up. As Hannah and Samuel ran over to him and wrapped their arms about his legs, Fiona closed the book and set it aside. He could see the exhaustion in her lovely green eyes, and guilt overwhelmed him.

  “I’m so sorry,” he told her. “I lost track of time.”

  She smiled wanly. “It’s quite all right. I didn’t mind spending some time with them. They are very sweet children.” She pressed a gentle kiss to Felicity’s forehead, then stood and handed her toward Morgan.

  Morgan took his daughter, grinning as she squealed happily. “Thank you, but I feel terrible for keeping you awake. Next time, come and get me.”

  She shrugged. “I probably would have just stayed up half the night going over the books anyway. It was a welcome break for me.”

  Their gazes caught and held for a long moment, but then she blushed prettily and looked away. Whatever this thing between them was, he was fairly certain she felt it, too. He wanted to kiss her so much in that moment that it physically hurt not to, but the children provided a buffer that he obviously desperately needed.

  “Well,” she murmured, breaking eye contact and stepping away from him. “I suppose I should let you go. Will I be seeing you in the morning?”

  He nodded, his heart lighter than it had been in ages. “Of course. Sleep well.”

  She blushed even deeper, then leaned down and hugged Hannah and Samuel. “Good night, my darlings. Thank you for keeping me company.”

  “Good night, Mrs. Bohannan,” Hannah chirped.

  “Thank you for reading to us,” Samuel said, his manner more reserved, but the longing in his eyes still very evident.

  Ushering the children toward the door, Morgan glanced back at Fiona and caught a glimpse of unguarded longing in her eyes as well. He suddenly wondered if she wanted children of her own.

  But then she turned away, and he knew this was not the time or place to ask those sorts of questions. The thoughts suddenly swirling in his mind, of a future where the five of them might be a family, were terrifying and new. He needed some time to think it all through before he did something incredibly foolish.

  With a sigh, he led his family out into the night, feeling like a terrible father for having kept them out so late. His coachman was nodding off inside the coach, and he realized that the man had also been there all day. As much as he loved what he was doing at Brookhaven, he promised himself to be more considerate of others from now on. He had to limit his time here to something quite a bit more reasonable.

  A few minutes later, the coach was moving through Kensington and headed toward Mayfair. Felicity had already nodded off in his arms, and Hannah had leaned her head against the padded wall, her eyes drifting shut. Only Samuel was still wide awake.

  “Did you have a good day?” Morgan asked his son.

  Samuel nodded emphatically. “Yes, Papa. I like being there. It’s a happy place.”

  “What do you think about Mrs. Bohannan?” Morgan asked, unable to resist. “It was very nice of her to read to you while I was working.”

  “She’s nice,” Samuel said softly, dropping his gaze. “She reminds me of Mama.”

  “Does she?” Morgan stared at his son pensively. He didn’t see many similarities between the women at all, but he supposed that they both exuded warmth and kindness, though Anne’s spirit had been gentle and Fiona’s was forged in steel.

  “I miss my mama,” Samuel said suddenly, his bottom lip trembling.

  Morgan patted the seat beside him, and when Samuel moved across the aisle, Morgan used his free arm to hug his son tightly. “I do, too,” he whispered into his hair. “I do, too.”

  Chapter Nine

  Roger paced the opulent flat where he’d once kept his mistress, fuming at the fact that he couldn’t go back to his home in Mayfair. That would be the first place that his stepbrothers looked for him, and he had no doubt that they’d already heard he was back in London.

  He’d just completed a very disheartening visit with his solicitor, who’d been managing his holdings while he’d been gone. It hadn’t gone well. Between the devastation Adrian had wrought as Prometheus and his own lack of attention, his holdings had dwindled to an abysmal level. He was practically a pauper!

  His father had been the first to invest in brothels and gaming halls, and the profits had always kept the earldom quite nicely in the black. Now, he’d been informed that he had very little available cash, and nearly all of his illegal businesses had been shuttered.

  Thank god he still owned plenty of property. He’d simply have to open up a few more establishments and wait for the money to begin rolling in once again. Unfortunately, he needed a cash infusion to get him started.

  Luckily,
he knew just the person to ask. Earlier, he’d sent an invitation to his stepmother, and he was hoping she’d choose to come. She’d always been very supportive of him. As much as he hated her sons, he loved her and his half-sister, Allison.

  He busied himself looking through the papers his solicitor had left for him, and a few hours passed. He was so involved in what he was doing that he almost didn’t hear his butler until he cleared his throat.

  “My Lord, the Countess of Winters has arrived.”

  “Excellent,” Roger said, pushing away his papers and leaning back in his chair. “Send her in.”

  A few moments later, his stepmother entered the room in a rustle of stiff skirts. He smiled instinctively, but his smile quickly fell when he saw the look on her lovely face.

  “How dare you!” she snarled, coming to stand before him, trembling with anger. “Do you think I still want anything to do with you after you stole Allison away like a thief in the night?”

  For some reason, he’d thought that she’d understood why he’d taken Allison with him to France, but apparently, those bastards had gotten to her already, turning her against him.

  “I needed her with me,” he said coldly. “I didn’t harm her in any way.”

  “She told me everything that happened,” she replied, just as coldly. “She was terrified. And if she’d come to any harm, I would have hunted you down and killed you myself.” She sniffed. “You know my sons will destroy you once they know you’ve returned.”

  “I can handle them.” He shrugged, seeing his chances of her giving him the money he needed disappearing like smoke in the wind. “But I need some help. Do you think you could possibly give me a small loan?”

  She laughed bitterly. “I no longer have any funds of my own. Lucien has cut me off completely. He found out about the child we took from him. He married that trashy little gamekeeper’s daughter and forced me out of my home. Can you imagine! He exiled me to a cottage in the country, but I managed to prevail upon a friend to let me stay with her here in London. I am selling off my jewels to maintain my lifestyle, and it’s all your fault!”

  He cringed a bit to hear of her dire straits but didn’t feel that he was entirely to blame. She was the one who had approached him with her plan to get rid of Serenity Pratt. He’d been happy to help out, but she was the one who hadn’t been able to bear the thought of her precious oldest son and heir marrying someone so lowborn.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” he told her placatingly, but what really bothered him was not her reduced circumstances but the fact that she no longer had money to lend him. However, he also knew that her jewelry was worth a fortune. “But if you could find it in you to give me the proceeds of one of your more valuable pieces of jewelry, I’d be able to help you out once my fortunes have changed.”

  Her angry gaze turned calculating. “If I did give you one of the jewels, do you promise me that you’ll make Lucien pay for what he’s done to me?”

  Roger nodded emphatically. “That, my dear stepmother, is a promise I’d be happy to make.”

  A few more plans were made, and then Roger escorted her toward the front door. To his surprise, he found that Allison was waiting in the foyer, looking lovely as ever in a cerulean gown that matched her lovely eyes.

  “Allison,” he said with a smile. “So good to see you.”

  She drew herself up to her full five feet and gave him a look that would have incinerated a lesser man. “I wish I could say the same, Roger. I was shocked when Mother said she was coming to visit you. After what you’ve done, I didn’t expect to ever see you again.”

  He frowned. “What have I done? I didn’t hurt you in any way during our trip to France. I fear you’ve given your mother the wrong impression.”

  She lifted her chin, suddenly reminding him of Lucien. “You kept me trapped in a dingy hotel room for weeks! You abandoned me when Lucien’s detective arrived and forced me to return to London with a... commoner!”

  “I gave you the choice to return home, and you took it!” he fired back.

  “What about Anne?” she cried. “You killed her!”

  He smirked and shook his head. “I did no such thing. As my lawyers will tell you, I had no knowledge of those men’s plans. It isn’t my fault they were in my employ.”

  The countess gave him a furious look and ushered Allison toward the door, which his footman hurried to open. “I’ll be in touch.”

  IN THE FADING EVENING light, Fiona stood on the back stoop, watching Molly and Ginny play with the two puppies. She’d decided to introduce them to the newest residents of Brookhaven first, believing that the two girls needed the warm furry friends more than anybody.

  Ginny still hadn’t spoken to her, but a half-smile curled her lips as she hugged one of the puppies, and Fiona dared to hope that she might come out of this entire horrible experience without any lasting scars. She was still young and hopefully resilient.

  She frowned suddenly, wondering how resilient she had been at sixteen. Had she ever really recovered from the things that had been done to her or had she just pushed them all to some deep dark corner of her mind where they crouched like hidden monsters, waiting to be unleashed?

  “It seems as though they like the puppies,” Morgan said from behind her, his voice warm in her ear.

  The temptation to lean back against him, to let him take her in his arms the way he had the other night, was nearly overwhelming. This man did things to her that she’d never imagined possible. He made her want to trust him, to let him help her, to make love to him...

  “Of course, they do,” she whispered. “Everybody loves puppies.” She turned to look up at him, so handsome in the twilight. “You have such a knack for knowing how to make these children’s lives better. I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done.”

  He shrugged and dropped his gaze, looking a bit embarrassed. “I should have done it sooner. It embarrasses me to think that you and my brothers have been making a difference all these years while I was so self-involved, so unaware...”

  She lifted her hand and gently cupped his cheek, the soft scratch of his evening stubble abrasive against her palm. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Morgan. You’ve been donating to Brookhaven for years. That was helpful. I’ve always appreciated it.”

  He scoffed roughly but pressed his face a little more into her hand, as though he enjoyed the connection as well. “I guess all that matters is that my eyes are open now. I really do plan to do everything I can to change the lives of these children for the better.”

  “I know you do,” she assured him.

  They stared into each other’s eyes for a long moment, so long that she became hyper-aware that she was still touching him. All the small intimacies they’d shared over the past weeks stretched between them, and the urge to kiss him again was so strong that it shook her to the core. Before she could act on it, she let her hand drop and stepped away. “Did you finish the Moby Dick room?”

  He shook his head. “No, but I’ll be done tomorrow, and then, I’ll be working on Alice in Wonderland.” He grinned. “I’m really looking forward to that one.”

  “I’m sure it will be magnificent.” A motion in the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she turned to see that Ginny had quit playing with the puppies and seemed to have shrunk in on herself, her gaze haunted as she carefully avoided looking at Morgan.

  He must have noticed as well, because he made a rough, lost sound in the back of his throat. “She’s terrified of me, isn’t she?”

  “I’m afraid so,” she answered, wishing it wasn’t so.

  “Have you had a chance to talk to her about Prometheus?” he murmured. “Does she have any idea who he is?”

  Fear pooled in the pit of her stomach at the thought that one of the girls might say something that would give her away. She knew she’d have to tell Morgan eventually, but it already seemed as though the time to do that had passed. Now, she’d just look dishonest, and the last thing she wanted was to l
ose his regard. “Neither of them is ready to be questioned,” she said testily. “Your need to know Prometheus’s identity is not important when it comes to these girls’ recovery.”

  “I’ll go,” he told her, chastened. “I just wanted to say goodnight.”

  She could tell that she’d hurt him, and she wanted to apologize but wasn’t quite sure how to do it without making things even more complicated. She never should have kissed him, never should have let things between them become anything more than friendly. She feared she’d already come to care for him far more than was good for either of them.

  “Good-night, Morgan.”

  He gazed at her for another long moment and then turned and went back in the house, leaving her feeling lonelier than she’d ever been and promising herself she’d try to keep things strictly professional between them from now on.

  Chapter Ten

  Over the next few days, Morgan spent most of his time at Brookhaven working on the murals, finishing the one based on Alice in Wonderland and also one for another pair of boys based on the legend of Camelot. His young assistant, Henry, had proven to be even more talented than he’d imagined, and he’d been able to assign him whole sections of the murals, which the boy had completed with little supervision.

  But something had changed with Fiona. Although she’d been polite and appreciative, she’d shut down in some way. She seemed to have her guard up again, and he wasn’t exactly sure what he’d done to make her once again erect those walls that she used to keep the world at bay. He feared he’d pushed her too much, had taken too many liberties with their intimacies.

  The loss of her kind regard and gentle companionship had hurt more than he ever could have imagined. He wanted to get back to when things had been easy between them, but he wasn’t quite sure how to manage it.

  In the past, it seemed that every time he’d done something nice for the children, she’d let him in a little, but he was hesitant to do something with that particular goal in mind. He felt it had worked in the past because his intentions had been pure, and he didn’t want to do anything that seemed inauthentic in any way.