"Beg pardon, ma"am. Didn"t see how it was." He shot Evelyn a confused glance that suggested he still didn"t see how it was. Shaking off his friends" hands, he pushed his way through the gathering crowd, a handkerchief held to his nose, and was gone.
"Evelyn!" Loveday was tugging at his arm. "You shouldn"t have done that. Please-can we go?"
He looked down at the huge golden eyes raised to his face. Her distress scored to the bone. What had he been thinking, to bring her out like this and expose her to- To what? Insult? Men who would look on her as a tasty dish to be sampled and shared with a friend? Men who would look at her as selfishly as he had once done? With shaking hands he drew her closer, tucking her against him with an arm over her shoulders.
"I"m sorry," he said. "Come. I"ll take you home."
They walked. He suggested a hackney, but she refused. Part of him exulted secretly, because she would be with him that little bit longer. Nor had she pulled away, but stayed close, nestled against him. And part of him burned with shame that she considered him, of all men, a refuge, when all he wanted was to take her back to his own lodgings and make love to her. While he was supposed to be courting Miss Angaston.
What was he to do if Lionel had not returned? Was she safer with him or without him?
Joy had drained from the evening, leaving a sour taste, and when they reached Little Frenchman"s Yard mist slithered from the dark pa.s.sage to coil about their feet. Involuntarily, Evelyn"s arm tightened around her.
"Is something wrong?" she asked.
"No." But he held her closer, as if the pale streamers could slide between them and steal her away. He stepped into the shadows with her, savagely aware of the softness of her body against his, the weight of her head on his shoulder, her sweet fragrance all about him. His body had hardened, blood beating in a heavy, urgent rhythm.
She stopped. Turned to him, her face a pale blur in the enveloping darkness...
She deserves better. You hurt her once. You swore you wouldn"t do it again!
"We shouldn"t stop here," Evelyn said. Not just because he didn"t think he could withstand much more, but because the darkness was alive, might swallow her...take her away again.
She might be safer if it did...
Her hands were spread against his chest and, helplessly, one of his came up to cover them, press them against his heart. And she leaned into him, stretching up, and her mouth was close. Too close, so that her soft breath sighed over his lips. With a groan of despair he bent his head and surrendered.
She kissed him. All soft, warm lips. Hesitant. Shy, yet eager as he returned her kisses, fighting for control of the storm surge that rode him. He fought to feather gentle kisses over her mouth, fought the urge to ravish as her lips parted and she invited him in. He gave her what she asked for, feeling her tremble as he licked into the honeyed warmth. Her tongue met his in a wondering, perilous dance as he gathered her against him, brutally aware of his aching length pressed into her belly...of her sweet, spicy fragrance, warm with her arousal. His mind reeled as her hips moved against him. Tempting. Inviting.
He broke the kiss and drew back from her, feeling as though he had been ripped apart. Breathing hard, he shook his head to clear it.
"I"ll-" His voice was hoa.r.s.e. Dragging in a breath, he tried again. "I"ll see you to the door."
G.o.d help him if Lionel hadn"t returned. Evelyn wasn"t sure he"d have the strength to stop if she kissed him again.
Trembling fingers traced his lips. He jerked away and her hand fell.
"No more," he said, more harshly than he intended. "I swore this would not happen." He dragged in a breath to strike the blow that would cut them apart. "I"m leaving town tomorrow. The likelihood is that I"ll be betrothed by the time I return."
Loveday became very still.
"It"s better if we don"t see each other again," he said quietly. "Tell Lionel I was sorry to miss him. My people will let me know when the paintings are complete."
Not daring to meet her gaze, Evelyn turned away. Without another word he crossed the yard, aware of her behind him as they trod up the steps. Once on the landing, she slipped around him and unlocked the door.
Lamplight spilled out and a queer stab of emotion went through him. Relief? Disappointment? A shabby old cloak was cast over a chair by the table, the note they had left lying beside the lamp, rather than under the candlestick. Lionel was home. She was safe.
"Wait, you mustn"t forget your cloak," said Loveday. Her voice sounded constricted, and her fingers fumbled with the clasp. She was shivering, and his gut clenched.
He reached out and stilled her hands. They were cold. "Keep it." He couldn"t bear to think of the cold eating at her. If he couldn"t remain to keep her warm, then his cloak could do it.
"Keep it?" She stared at him. "I can"t do that. It"s far too expensive!"
"The money doesn"t matter," he said. He just wanted to know that she was warm. One way or another.
"But-"
"Keep it. For me. Please." He managed a smile, gathering every remaining vestige of willpower. "Good night."
Loveday stood, bereft, huddled in the warmth and musky male scent of Evelyn"s cloak. It was just a cloak. An elegantly cut piece of cloth that didn"t fit her. She had no business feeling cherished in it.
Any more than she ought to feel cherished in Evelyn"s arms. She didn"t fit there, either. Not really. The leering gentleman he had knocked down, and the news that he was intending to marry, had only reminded her of what she already knew-that if she had any part in Evelyn"s life it could only be as his mistress. She couldn"t find it in her to condemn him for that. It was the way of the world.
He was a viscount. Marriage for him was a matter of wealth and lineage. It wasn"t his fault she wanted more than he would ever be able to offer. He was wiser than she. Kind, too, because instead of staying and taking his pleasure, he had left.
She belonged in one frame, he in another. And although he might briefly step beyond his boundaries to enter her world, she could never follow him back to his. She could have asked him to stay, but if she had she would have had to confess the truth. All of it. That he had been deceived in every possible way.
Blinking hard, she stepped over to the table and picked up Lionel"s shabby old cloak. Her gaze fell on the note she had left. Something extra was written at the bottom. She picked it up.
Lionel-don"t worry. I swear she will be safe with me this time.
Evelyn.
A tear splashed onto the paper. And another. Angrily, she dashed them away, hanging Lionel"s old cloak behind the door. Tears wouldn"t help. Anyway, things were better now. The money Evelyn had paid for the paintings was a G.o.dsend. It meant safer lodgings, fuel for a fire, painting supplies, food. Another week or so and it would have been the streets.
She looked at the shabby old cloak and trailed her fingers down Evelyn"s fine garment, which she was still wearing. It should be hung up, too....
Half an hour later she was curled in its warmth on her narrow cot in the empty lodgings. Evelyn"s male scent wrapped around her. If she closed her eyes she could pretend in her dreams that he was there, that his arms held her safely. That they fitted, belonged together.
He moaned as she kissed her way down his body until she knelt before him. Dazed, he stared down at her, read her intent. Tried to summon the strength to refuse, to say she didn"t need to do that...but his voice was as much a prisoner of her sweet sensuality as his body....
The caress of her soft breath was both promise of heaven and torture.... Please, have mercy.... He could only submit as a silken cheek stroked over his aching, heated length. He shuddered, consumed with need, as her warm breath bathed him...and she took him into her mouth. He groaned, head flung back as pleasure raked him, and slid a shaking hand through tangled fire to caress her throat. He needed to speak her name to know her, to truly possess her.... It was in his heart, on his lips, but even as he drew a shuddering breath to speak it, and turn dream to reality, the mist swirled, taking everything....
Evelyn cried out in protest, but his voice was swallowed in the mist. He tried to hold her, but she faded all the faster through his fingers into memory and then beyond memory...and there was nothing but aching need and searing loss....
He sat up, sweaty and shaken, his heart pounding as he grasped at the fading fragments of his dream. At least he supposed it had been a dream. It had felt so real.... An erotic dream? He was hard and aching, but he didn"t remember anything...not really. Just that he had wanted...wanted who?
A face slid into focus, all golden eyes and unruly curls...and his body hardened to the point of pain. He jerked upright. No! He"d sworn he wouldn"t seduce her again. He wasn"t even sure that he had been dreaming about Loveday.
Evelyn forced himself to think rationally. It had been months since he had been with a woman. No surprise that he was having erotic dreams.
It would be easy enough to find a mistress. The only problem was he didn"t want any of the available women. He wanted only one, a woman honor forbade him to take.
He left town at first light, grim-faced.
As house parties went it was not too bad. He knew most of the people present, and if his aunt"s machinations to match him up with Miss Phoebe Angaston-accredited Beauty and Heiress-were annoying, at least the lady herself was pleasant enough. Although holding herself aloof at first, she apparently had forgiven him for not attending the dinner and ball. Pleasant, kind, beautiful, and she was almost his own age rather than an eighteen-year-old innocent-the perfect bride, in fact.
And Evelyn couldn"t for the life of him stir up a sc.r.a.p of interest in her. He liked her. She was a nice person, even delightful. It would be no hardship to marry her.
Only he couldn"t bring himself to make the offer she clearly expected. It wouldn"t be fair, because every time he tried to bring himself to the point of doing his duty to his lineage and t.i.tle, he thought of having to paint over Lionel"s murals, and found something else to talk about.
Eventually, Miss Angaston brought matters to a head.
"Who is she?"
He stared. They were seated slightly apart, courtesy of Aunt Drummoyne, at a picnic. "Who"s who?"
"The woman you"re in love with."
His throat closed and his cravat seemed likely to choke him. Kind, beautiful, charming-add second-sight to her qualifications.
"What makes you think I"m in love with someone?" Was he in love?
She smiled. "You"ve been trying to bring yourself to propose to me for the past week. Something is stopping you, and I doubt it"s fear of my reply. You stare into s.p.a.ce constantly and you frequently look sad. As if you"ve lost something."
"I see." He wasn"t going to confirm or deny. Love.
"May I make a suggestion?"
He could only nod.
"If she isn"t married, or something utterly impossible like that, then marry her. I fell in love when I was nineteen, and my father insisted that it would be better to wait for what he considered a more suitable husband." Gray eyes met his. "Being young and dutiful, I obeyed. My suitor was dismissed, and now he is about to marry someone else." Something glittered in the corner of her eye. Something that she blinked away. "I"ve lost him. My advice is that you don"t make the same mistake." She reached out and patted Evelyn"s hand. "This is where you tell me to mind my own business."
He shook his head. "Instead, tell me. Had I offered, would you have married me?"
She frowned. "Probably. We would get on well enough" Her smile returned. "But I think you need more than that, St. Austell."
She came to him in the darkness of his bed. All spicy fragrance and slender limbs that wound about him. Mysterious and yet familiar, her body sliding against his, her mouth a dream of tender, teasing seduction. There were no words. Words had no place here. Only her trembling sighs and his own harsher breathing as he loved her. Slowly. Tenderly. As she yielded to him and he discovered her secrets one by one with hands that shook with restraint.
Softer, sweeter than his memories, she burned in his arms, all silken seduction. One hand fisted in her hair, holding her for his kiss. Her mouth was his, surrendered utterly to his demands as he pressed between her thighs, parted slick, swollen folds with gentle fingers, and felt at last the hot, liquid welcome of her body. He knew her now. His. All his. Only his. And at last, at last he knew his own heart.
His mouth took the soft cry as her body surrendered its innocence, and he felt deep within himself an answering pang. They were joined, fully, sweetly, and he made love to her with an aching tenderness.... Only the mist was now swirling between them, and she was fading, fading into it. Or the mist was fading into her.
He woke, her name on his lips tearing the darkness as he spilled himself in his empty bed. And he remembered his dream. Loveday. The murals. He fell back against the pillows with a groan and covered his face with his hands. It was Loveday who had been haunting his dreams. And Loveday who had modelled for those curst murals. Loveday. The woman he wanted above all others.
Unable to sleep again, in the end Evelyn rose, found a robe, and went down to the library. To his surprise, a lamp was burning in there.
A familiar voice spoke from near the fireplace. "Up rather late, aren"t you, Eve? Can"t you sleep, either?"
David Winslow, one of his guests, sat there in the dancing shadows, nursing a large brandy. At least Evelyn a.s.sumed it was brandy, since the brandy decanter was on a wine table beside him.
"No. What are you doing in here?" He hadn"t seen much of David since his friend"s recent return from Italy, and there was rarely time at a house party to really talk to anyone. Unless you were meant to be courting them.
David shrugged. "I had plans for the evening. They involved spending the night in Lady Beaumont"s chamber, but her husband showing up just before dinner put paid to that. Apparently he had the same idea."
"Ah. How tactless of him."
"Quite. Heard you were having some murals painted."
Evelyn froze. "Yes. That"s right." David had known Lionel, as well.
"By Lionel," said David. He picked up the decanter and poured another gla.s.s of brandy, took a swallow. "Hmm. Excellent. Are you having one?"
"No." Evelyn needed to think. He walked over to his desk and sat down. He wondered how his family was going to react when he announced that he was going to wed the penniless sister of an indigent artist. He didn"t care, any more than he should have cared six years ago. More to the point, was the indigent artist himself going to permit it?
"Just one problem," continued David. He rose, picked up the decanter and strolled across to the table where it usually sat.
Evelyn shot him a glance. "What? With my brandy?"
David shook his head, pouring an extra gla.s.s and swirling the amber fluid around, squinting at it in the lamplight. "No. Brandy"s excellent. Problem"s with Lionel."
His casual tone chilled Evelyn. "What"s amiss? Have you seen him?"
"You haven"t, obviously."
Obviously? "No. We arranged it by letter. Why?"
David regarded him thoughtfully. Without answering, he walked over to offer him the brandy.
Evelyn looked at it. "I told you I didn"t want one."
Raising an eyebrow, David set the gla.s.s down beside him, anyway. "Lionel died in Italy six months ago. I helped Loveday bury him."
Very carefully, Evelyn picked up the brandy gla.s.s and drained it.
He was on the way back to London before the sun rose, leaving a brief note for his aunt that explained only that he was gone, another for Phoebe Angaston thanking her for excellent advice, and a very confused and sleepy groom who had come down to find out exactly why a horse was being saddled at dawn.
He got into a fight, Loveday said. At the local tavern. Some bruiser didn"t like Lionel painting his girl. Beat him up. A few days later, apparently his sight failed. Gone. Just like that in both eyes. I"d been visiting them and Loveday wrote to beg me to come back and help. She said he was in despair.
Winslow"s mouth had been grim.
By the time the letter reached me Lionel was dead.
David hadn"t been able to tell him very much more. Only that he had arranged safe pa.s.sage back to England for Loveday with a lady wanting a companion. That she had brought most of Lionel"s remaining work with her...and her own.
The difference Evelyn had seen in Lionel"s style had been because it hadn"t been her brother"s work at all. It was Loveday"s. She had painted the seascape-he would swear it. Loveday had always painted; he"d known that. But she"d never permitted anyone but Lionel to view her work.
Evelyn reached London in the evening, to discover Loveday had abandoned the rooms in Little Frenchman"s Yard.
"Not here," a blowsy woman told him. "Gone, she is. Got herself a man, they say. There were one sniffin" round a while back and she moved out right after. So I moved in." The woman jiggled her b.r.e.a.s.t.s at him. "I"ll do yeh, if yeh like."
A chill slid through him as he declined politely. Gone. He"d wanted her out of here, but how the devil was he supposed to find her now? With nowhere else to go, he hurried back to the Strand, hailed a hackney and gave the town house address.
He stared up at his darkened house. At this hour Loveday would be long gone, but there might be some sort of clue to where she was living. She might even have left an address with Hurley, the caretaker, or his wife.
Hurley took his time answering the banging on the area door. He glared out at Evelyn in the light of a flickering candle. "Who the he-" He broke off. ""Tis you, m"lord!"
Grumbling under his breath, Hurley found a lamp for Evelyn. "Be you stayin" here, master?"