That Scandalous Summer (39 page)

Late in the evening, the conversation turned to the question of beliefs: did anyone credit these mystics? And Viscountess Sanburne, a lovely but serious young woman who had spent most of the night smiling silently at her husband’s repartee, leaned forward to argue that magic was real. The jeers that answered her statement—even Baron Forbes chuckled—did not discourage her. Jaw squaring, she explained that she did not believe in
sorcery
and the like, but felt that faith was in itself a mysterious and perhaps magical power, insofar as one could not argue with its transformative properties.

“For instance,” she said, “a certain tribe in the northwest of America favors a ceremony which they undertake for three days and nights without sleep.” To the beating of drums, she explained, the men of the tribe inhaled intoxicating smoke, and spoke at first of the visions that came to them. On the third night, however, they did not speak at all, for by then they had entered a speechless trance in which neither sound nor sight had any grip on them. “It’s only after they wake again,” she concluded, “that they are considered men—for they have reached a place beyond reason, a very sacred place, in which they have come to learn a deeper truth about themselves, beyond all logic. And in many cases, they do seem transformed—some discover new skills, and others are remarked to have altered their very personalities.”

The Hawthornes had made light of the speech, as was their wont. But long after the gathering had broken up, the viscountess’s words continued to echo through Michael’s mind, until their sense seemed perfectly plain to him. Perhaps all great truths emerged from compulsions. For as he prowled down this darkened hallway now, nothing—no piece of logic, no reasoning—could
have compelled him to turn back. He was driven in this course, though it would change him irrevocably.

He could not let her go.

Even if the price was his honor, and everything else he’d thought he knew of himself—his dedication to the hospital and the people he served there; his purpose to heal; his cynicism that love ever made a wise gamble—he could not let her go.

He was almost to her door when a shadowy figure stepped out ahead of him. “Up to no good,” it said.

He recognized the voice, and came to a stop. “Sanburne. Why are you up?”

The viscount stepped forward into the dim circle of light shed by a nearby sconce. He wore a dressing gown, and his eyes were heavy-lidded. “I’m up because I have a wife who dislikes me yanking the bellpull at half past two. Those pastries we had at high tea,” he said wryly. “She’s a terrible craving for them. And peculiar ideas about servants, whom she thinks require their sleep.”

Michael smiled despite himself. “You’re off to prowl the kitchens?”

“Indeed.” Sanburne eyed him. “And where are
you
off to?”

Michael did not reply to that. Elizabeth’s bedchamber was three doors away. He’d known that for days now, and the knowledge had kept him burning well into the nights.

After a moment, Sanburne sighed. “If you hurt her, I will see that you regret it.” His tone was pleasant and steady. “I will make it my main business, in fact.”

Michael did not pretend to misunderstand. “I have no such intention. And I’m glad that she has friends to look after her.”

Sanburne rolled his shoulders, an impatient gesture. “She has more than one.”

“Then I’m all the gladder for it.”

A brief pause followed, during which Sanburne studied him with frank curiosity. “Here’s the thing,” he said. “You’re a decent sort, which is more than I could say for myself before I met Lyd. And I suppose Lizzie might also have a taste for pastries one day. Would you know where to look for them?”

This conversation was rapidly approaching the surreal. “I suppose I’d try the larder first,” Michael said.

Sanburne nodded. “And if she only wanted the strawberry kind?”

For God’s sake. “I suppose I’d take all of them, and let her pick out the ones she wanted.”

Sanburne laughed. “I like that.” Stepping forward, he delivered a solid clap to Michael’s shoulder. “Remember this ambition.
All
the pastries. She wouldn’t settle for less, you know. Nor should she. And now . . . I believe I’ll pretend I didn’t see you here.” With a tip of an invisible hat, he walked onward.

Michael stood in the darkness, listening to the viscount’s footsteps fade. He felt oddly disoriented—as though he truly had been entranced, and only now had he come awake.

All the pastries
. He smiled a little. While Sanburne was slightly deranged, he was also right: Elizabeth deserved everything.

But Sanburne did not know the circumstances. No matter what Michael did or did not do, she would be hurt in the end. Love could not save her estates.

Turn back. Walk away
.

That was the honorable course.

His temper lit. He had already walked away once tonight, when he rightfully should have followed her and laid Charles Nelson out with one swift snap of his fist. And afterward—afterward he would have turned to her and said, “
That
was my right. And it will remain so.”

Why had she not come back after meeting the bastard? Michael could force himself to respect her need for funds—but if she meant to take up with that ass again . . . then she had abandoned her plans. In which case, she might as well dally with
him
.

He covered the remaining distance in less than a minute. The door to her sitting room opened without a squeak. Across the moonlit expanse of carpet, he saw the next door standing ajar. And through it . . .

On silent feet he advanced.

•   •   •

Her eyes opened suddenly. In the dark of her bedroom, Liza knew she was not alone.

Fear never touched her. Later she would find it curious that she had known from the first moment that it was he who stood at the foot of her bed. Clairvoyance, her spiritualists might have told her. But her knowledge was more mundane, born of a faint current of air that brought to her the suggestion of his warmth, the precise chemistry of his skin.

Animal spirit to animal spirit, she sensed him nearby.

She sat up. A shadow detached itself and approached.

“I am going tomorrow,” Michael said.

She knuckled her eyes, which felt gritty for lack of sleep. Only ten minutes ago, it seemed, she’d still been tossing and turning, looking for a way to foil Nello, to protect this man.

Going,
he said. Yes, that was best. For both of them.

“If you mean to go back to him,” he growled, “I cannot stay to watch.”

It would be wiser not to correct him. But she could not bear for him to think her such a fool.

“I’m not going back to him,” she said.

She heard him exhale. And then the mattress dipped as he settled down at her side.

“I could never go back to him now,” she whispered.

The warmth of his fingers on her face drove her eyes shut. In a long moment’s silence they sat together, as through the open window came the sound of a warm summer breeze ruffling the leaves.

He had never been in her bedroom before. How surprising and wrong that seemed. He belonged here with her as she slept.

Urgency quickened her pulse. She had seen the pain in his face when he worried for his brother; she had heard it in his voice when he spoke of his parents’ legacy. What kind of love would hers be, if she did not protect him from fresh agonies?

She made herself say it. “I am glad you are going. It’s best.”

“Yes,” he murmured. The mattress creaked as he leaned down. His lips were barely a whisper over hers. The kiss, so gentle, broke something inside her.

She wrapped her hand around his nape and kissed him back, earnestly.
I must protect you
. The thought, a moment ago so panicked, now felt sweet and strengthening. She could do this for him, so gladly, with no regrets.

But not before he loved her one more time.

“Come,” she whispered, and took him beneath the arms to urge him to lie down beside her.

•   •   •

He let her guide him down—wishing, for the briefest moment, that he had thought to open the curtains, so he might see her in this thin, slippery shift she wore. But then her mouth found his again and all other thoughts faded but this: how soft she was beneath him, how scented, some subtle floral note blending with the more natural perfume of her skin; the cool weight of her hair through his combing fingers, and then the delicate slope of her nape and the sweet, bony spur beneath it. Her arms closed lightly around his back, but he felt the strength in her when she arched against him. He suckled her tongue, and ran his hand down to her waist, curving over her hip.

He would touch her forever. He felt no rush, no physical urgency. All he wanted was to stroke her like this, in the dark of her room, wondrous with her acceptance of his right to be here.

She moved over to make more room for him. He settled by her side, exchanging with her long, lazy kisses. No rush, none. He traced her hairline as he kissed her, delicate feathering touches along her temple, the curve of her ear, the tender spot at the top of her jaw. She sighed, and he felt her eyelashes flutter against his cheek. It caused a shiver down his skin. He felt by memory for the mole beside her eye, pressing his lips to it.
I know you
.

Her lips found his ear, causing him to shudder again. His groin tightened, and he knew a fleeting disappointment that his body would not, after all, prove better than his appetites. He slid down a little to suck her neck, to trace the slope of her breast down to the nipple that stiffened so invitingly beneath the thin cloth. Very
lightly he took it between his teeth, wetting the fabric with his tongue, sucking strongly until she whimpered.

But that was not enough. So much required his attention. He lifted the silken shift off her, raising it by slow inches, moving down to kiss what he bared: her ankles, small and bony, and the gentle swell of her calves; the tender place behind her knees, and the soft give of her thighs, which trembled under his mouth.

Time, he thought, was a privilege, and in a just world this would be their bed, and this night not worth counting, it being the first of innumerable shared nights to come. But now he knew why men married, for then time was theirs, a privilege and a claim;
your time is all mine,
he would tell her. And he saw, too, that lovemaking was a very particular kind of sex, one he had never enjoyed before, but the way of which was so clear to him, seeming to emerge from some ancient place of knowledge within him. This was a world away from mere congress, his desire unrecognizable—no less fervent than when he’d taken her in the gamekeeper’s cottage, but profoundly redirected. The goad that spurred him onward, the pleasure he craved, had nothing to do with his own pleasure, save that her pleasure became his.

He licked up to the sweetness between her legs, gripping her hips when she would have twisted away. She tasted of the ocean, and she sighed like the sea. With his tongue he found the little bud that made her gasp. Again and again he licked into her, making her buck, making her sob. And when she cried out, going limp beneath him—when she whispered to him to stop; she could not bear any more—then that was only the beginning, still. This was still the beginning.

He moved back up her body, his mouth leading the way, his hand cupping her firmly between her legs, using the heel of his palm to torment her sensitized flesh while he suckled hard again at her nipple. Her whispers broke apart into incoherent fragments, sobbing entreaties that made no sense; he palmed her harder yet and then growled into her mouth when she tried to squirm free.

“I want you inside me,” she said raggedly into his ear.

Not yet. This was still the beginning. He was intent—

A groan escaped him as her hot little hand closed over his cock. She was freeing him, three clever tugs, seating him firmly against her quim. His cock slid down through her folds, wet, wetter than the ocean.

“Please,” she whispered.

He took her mouth as he thrust into her. No longer innocent, no longer pure; his appetites were roaring, and he resented them for making him so helpless—until she wrapped her legs around him and arched, and the beauty of it broke over him like a wondrous revelation.

Nothing of resentment in this. Only gratitude.

“God, you are beautiful,” he said.

Her laugh hitched. “You can’t even see me.”

As if that mattered. “You are a wonder,” he said. “Were I blind, I would see that.”

But he did not like that she could still manage to put together words. He rolled his hips and her breath caught. Leaning down, he tongued her lobe and thrust harder. Her thighs tightened around his hips and that was the signal he’d required. Again and again he stroked into her, deeper, faster, as her rapid little breaths turned into keens, rising the scale, breaking—

She contracted around him and the top of his skull
seemed to lift away. One, two, three more thrusts, and then—ah, God, he did not want to do it, he did not—

Her hands gripped his buttocks, her nails cutting into him in demand. And with a gusty groan, he spilled himself in her.

A mistake
. He knew it the moment he rolled off her. But it did not need to be so. “Marry me,” he said.

Her ragged breathing fell silent. And then he heard her draw a great, shuddering breath.

“I can’t,” she said. “You know I can’t.”

“Forget why you can’t,” he said. “Only tell me that you want to. That you will.”

Her hand found his throat. Groped very lightly to his face. The soft press of her lips destroyed him.

“I
can’t,
” she said very gently. “Nor can you, my love.”

My love
. “Don’t use those words,” he said roughly. “Not if you don’t mean—”

“And you will go in the morning, and my heart will break,” she said. “But I do love you. That won’t change, even with my heart in pieces.”

He held himself very still, curious to see what would be first to break—her heart, or him.

And then, suddenly, all these words, all this turmoil, irritated him beyond measure. He sat up. His brother had not replied to his letter. It was time for a confrontation. “If I came to you with money,” he said. If Alastair could be persuaded—or threatened, for by God, he had it in him. “Then, would you—”