Chapter 15 #2
Which was why she gasped when she found him staring out at her. “Have you got the wrong carriage, milady?” he said, cocksure as he pleased.
She didn’t hesitate and clambered inside, slamming the door behind her. Her actions spoke for her as she took a seat on the opposite bench and did her best impression of a piercing glare. She wasn’t really the glaring sort on a regular basis.
“Stealing a ride back to London, then?”
“What is going on between you and Lady Beatrix?”
Directness had ever been her way.
It wouldn’t fail her now.
His brow lifted. If she wasn’t mistaken, that was genuine surprise in his eyes. “Going on?”
“I saw the two of you enter a room.” She hesitated. “Alone.”
Blaze’s brow trenched into a deep furrow.
“Is Lady Beatrix your mistress?” She didn’t care for the hitch in her voice.
“Pardon?”
“Is she your…” Viveca swallowed. “Lover?”
His brow released, and his head tipped back as he barked a loud roar of laughter.
For her part, Viveca was nothing short of incensed. “You have the absolute gall to laugh at me? You’re the one carrying on with a married—”
“I’ll hand it to you,” he said, through fading laughter. “When you get the wrong end of a stick, you grab hold with both hands.”
“Wrong end of…” The stick? “What stick?”
“You’re an intelligent woman,” he said. “Has no other basis for my relationship with Lady Beatrix not occurred to you?”
Viveca would surely have permanent scowl lines after this night. “Does she have gambling debts at The Archangel?”
“Fair play,” said Blaze. “I reckon the truth is a little too hidden in plain sight.”
“Enough riddles,” she exclaimed. “Explain, man.”
“As it happens,” said Blaze, lounging back into the carriage’s plush leather squabs, “Lady Bea is my sister.”
“Sister?”
“Half-sister, if we’re going for precision.”
“But…” Viveca’s mind raced.
“It’s a longish story,” he said. “Should we get rolling on toward London?”
She nodded mutely, even as she felt a ping of sisterly guilt for leaving Saskia without a word.
Blaze gave the ceiling two firm raps, and the carriage jolted into motion.
A minute passed in silence.
Legs sprawled languidly across the footwell, one arm propped on the back of the bench, he was waiting for her to speak first.
“But I met your family, Blaze,” she said, starting with facts.
He nodded. “You met me mam and granddad.”
She understood. “But not your father.” Which meant… “Your father is—”
“That dodgy old rotter known as the Marquess of Lydon.”
“But…but how?”
“It’s that old story everyone knows. A fancy lord seducing a lowly wench. You’ve read your share of books, you know the one.”
“But your mother, Blaze, she’s…”
“Different from your usual sort of person?”
Viveca nodded.
“That she is. And she knows her own mind, too. What she likes, and what she doesn’t. Who she loves, and who she doesn’t. And here’s what defies belief: Mam loved that old waster Lydon.” He shook his head. “Still does, I reckon.”
Viveca experienced a surge of emotion primarily composed of anger. “And Lydon? Did he feel that way?”
“Naw. Me mam’s a beauty with a voice like an angel and he wanted to have her, so he did.”
Viveca shook her head, belief refusing to take hold. “And you’re not angry?”
“Oh, you can’t know how deep the well of my hatred for the Marquess of Lydon ran. For years, the blood flowing in my veins was fueled by it.”
“But no longer?”
He snorted. “I’ve not got a single good feeling about the man, no mistake, but, naw, I don’t burn with hate for him anymore.”
“But, why not?”
“Well, I got a sister out of those long-ago deeds, and me mam got me.”
“It’s obvious how much she loves you.”
He nodded, his eyes gone softer. “Do I wish the universe had chosen a different vessel to have brought us all together? Yea. But the universe seems to get its jollies from creating a mess and leaving us human folk to clean it up.”
“That’s so…incredibly…” Viveca was having a difficult time vocalizing what it was. But it made her feel warm inside. Blaze Jagger was…wise. “You’re truly one of one, aren’t you, Blaze Jagger?”
A smile tipped at the side of his mouth. “It might be that the universe can’t handle two Blaze Jaggers walking the earth at the same time.”
A laugh sprang up from Viveca. How could it not?
The fingers that rested on the seat beside him began drumming, drawing her gaze. Yet he wasn’t tapping the seat, but a… “Is that a book?”
Blaze looked down as if he were only now seeing the book for the first time. “’Tis.”
“May I see it?”
She might’ve caught a whiff of reluctance as he extended it across the footwell.
Fugitive Pieces by George Gordon Lord Byron
“Oh,” Viveca gasped. “I love Lord Byron’s work.”
“That’s what the bookseller said.” Blaze cleared his throat. “All the ladies love them some Lord Byron, real or imagined.”
“There are only one hundred copies of Fugitive Pieces in existence,” continued Viveca. “We can’t offer it at Sirens—too scandalous—but I’ve managed to read it in my brother’s inherited library.” Reverently, she smoothed her hand across the cover. “And this is for me?”
Blaze sighed, plainly caught out, and gave a nod in the affirmative.
“It is a favorite of mine.”
“Everyone dies, then?”
A sudden giggle bubbled up, and next thing they were sharing a laugh.
And through the laughter came another emotion, sudden.
Desire.
How she wanted this man.
He was the most complex, handsome, intelligent, funny, interesting, exciting man she’d ever met.
And she wanted him.
If he wouldn’t give her forever, then this carriage ride would do.