Chapter Nine
It was a fact known to everyone that Lady Claudia Fitzwilliam knew a thing or two about the mysterious world of women. It was a fact known to fewer people, almost exclusively of the opposite sex, that she knew a thing or two about men, too.
The first time she had figured out something on the topic had been with her best friend Moritz, hidden in the deep greenery of his garden in Rome. Their sighs of pleasure had seemed to float all the way up to a sky so blue and vast as to be infinite. As these things sometimes are, it had been awkward and mysterious and exhilarating. But most of all it had been serene, because although neither had any idea of what they were doing, they trusted each other blindly, fiercely , and they knew that since they cared for each other nothing could go wrong. They had been all over each other for that whole summer, their bodies suspended between the earth and the sky, enfolded in the scent of ripe grass. Then Moritz had confessed to having always loved her, and he had offered marriage.
She had to refuse, for his sake. Their souls had been made in the very same mould. He was a part of her, just as she was a part of him. But she did not love him, not in that way at least.
So it had not been with Moritz that she had learned to know the agony and dangers of all-consuming passion, but with a young man her age who used to work in her stables, in the year she turned nineteen. Her first crush had made her reckless, so it was only when she had been summoned in Father’s study that she had known for a fact that she had done something deeply wrong. She had been visiting the stables a little too often. She loathed horses.
There had been a family meeting of sorts, parents, grandparents (and a spinster aunt she barely knew who had come on purpose all the way from Scotland) where everyone had thrown their hands up in the air. There had been much shouting and arguing, running around and beating one’s chest, where have we failed, what have we done wrong, how could our little angel do this to us . The whole thing had looked like a bizarre marionette play, because it was incomprehensible if not downright perverse that something so wholesome and private could justify such a frenzy from a group of people twice or three times her age. She and Father had been the only ones still and mute. There was a quiet, furious disappointment in his eyes. He had never looked at her in any other way since.
The outcome of the Great Meeting had been that nobody should ever know what had happened, not even Moritz and the other Rabenstein siblings, and especially not Edward. As for the young man, he was unceremoniously dismissed. She never saw him again—and felt guilty for it to this day. There had been so many tears. They were the first and last she had shed over a man.
All that was achieved through that great commotion and semi-public humiliation was to make her understand that these things were best done in secret, and that she should be a lot smarter next time. Living on her own, away from the prying eyes of her parents, she had had other lovers after him. Quietly. Discreetly. None of them had mattered at all. She had forgotten easily, so easily every time. And there had been Moritz too, at times. Whenever they felt like the world was about to collapse on them and swallow them whole. But it had always been an extension of their friendship, as natural as breathing or talking. A way to remind each other that there was a place in this hell where they were cared for and safe.
Then the whole Edward catastrophe had happened. Since then, hidden away in Austria in Moritz von Rabenstein’s country estate, she had at least given a thought to the possibility that her parents—not to mention Edward—had been right all along. That her desires were shameful and filthy, and that a man could know what he wanted from a woman, but the opposite was an abomination. It had been longer than a year already, and she could no longer recall what the touch of a man felt like.
And even now, in Mr Campbell’s arms, she still could not remember.
Because it had never felt like this.
Her very soul glowed and sang at his touch. The way he looked at her was dizzying and desperate and gentle and full of wonder all at once. She was precious, marvellous in his arms. She was alive .
So when he resolutely grabbed her by the waist and pushed her off him, something within her almost seemed to break.
‘Claudia—’ his breath was laboured. ‘Claudia, darling, we must not.’
***
Your plan. Your damn plan. Your chance in life. If anything goes wrong, it’s all over.
What was left of his brain was also adding, rather pointedly:
And by the way, you have no idea how to handle a woman, let alone one like her, who knows exactly what she wants. You’ll make a fool of yourself, and you’ll be a story she tells to her friends until the end of her days.
Still, now that he had put some distance between their bodies, shuddering and half-feral with unfulfilled lust, he was surprised that some divinity didn’t intervene.
‘I desire you, Claudia. But we can’t.’
‘I—yes.’
‘Listen I—I’d give anything to do this. But there is too much at stake. Our families, your reputation. You—’ ah, how much it cost him to say those words now, ‘you are family now. Your father is family. I am not going to betray him like this. We have before us a task far more important than that stupid inventory. The harmony between our families.’ He didn’t give a damn about it, but he added it for good measure. ‘If your father finds out about this, my brother and I can say farewell to our business. Besides, it feels wrong to abuse your father’s trust like this.’
That was another lie. He absolutely did not care about abusing the Earl’s trust. But he could not tell the truth, could he?
Because the truth was that he liked her. He liked her an awful lot. And the intensity of it all was terrifying. Yes, it was terrifying that he lost control whenever he was with her. That he was drawn to her so much that he kept losing sight of his plan again and again.
‘Can you understand, Claudia?’
‘I do,’ she admitted. She inhaled deeply and rubbed a hand on her face. ‘Yes, of course I do. I am so very sorry, Mr Campbell. I feel terribly silly. I got carried away.’
‘There is no reason to feel silly,’ he placed a hand on hers, and squeezed it a little, making her smile. He kissed her brow softly, chastely, just to make things decent again—although in his head he was trailing his tongue from her bosom to her lips and plundering her mouth again. ‘Maybe something started in that carriage that night.’ Well, even before that, as far as he was concerned. When he had broken the Duke of Montgrove’s nose, and she had burst into laughter. ‘Something that we cannot fully control. Maybe it’s better if we take a little time apart from each other, yes?’
She looked rather sad. With those golden jewels, she looked like a wistful Roman empress. A strange tenderness blossomed in his heart. Rabenstein better return to Rome quickly because he had a sense that, if this continued, he’d need a friend to talk to soon enough.
‘Look at us, playing around like two fools.’ He took off the armband and held it out to her.
She just looked at it as if it were dirt.
‘Keep it. It’s yours.’
‘What? Why? I can’t possibly accept!’
An odd thing to say for a man who had been quietly stealing her artefacts for a few days already.
‘I mean it, Mr Campbell.’ She closed his fingers around it. ‘It’s yours. I don’t want to see it on display at the Antiquarians’ Club and be reminded of the day…’ she smiled a little, ‘the day I was rejected by the prettiest man in Rome.’
‘Claudia…’
He cupped her face. She leaned against it, closing her eyes. Something within him melted. He had never experienced anything like it.
‘I should go, now, shouldn’t I?’
‘It would be best.’
He stood, reluctantly.
‘I’ll get out of your way for a few days, yes? It will be better then, I promise.’
She did not say anything. Her eyes were a little vacant. She was far, far away. He brushed a kiss against her cheek, and both smiled.
‘Bye, darling,’ he said. But deep down, it felt like a farewell.