Chapter 7
I t was Arabella’s business to know about the lives and situations of the Upper Ten Thousand.
She studied Debrett’s with her sisters at least monthly, collected every paper and gossip rag that existed and used the courtesan network to find out everything she could.
It was often tedious work, but when it paid off, it was very much worth the time and effort.
The side effect of that study was that when she and Silas rode up to his front door, she recognized the townhouse immediately. It was a beautiful place, with wrought-iron terracing and intricate white stonework along its carefully painted face.
“Wasn’t this the Earl of Montague’s place?” she asked.
Silas swung down from his horse and then offered her a hand down from her own. She was wearing gloves and so was he, but she still felt the heat of him when he took her hand. He released her as the front door opened and a very stern-looking butler stepped out to greet them.
“Mr. Windham,” he intoned, all propriety, but Arabella heard the faintest hint of disgust behind it. She wrinkled her brow and glanced at Silas.
“Poole,” he said. “Miss Comerford and I will require some refreshments.”
The servant glanced at her. She could tell he recognized her name.
That wasn’t new. She’d built a reputation so nearly everyone would, down to those below stairs.
What the butler felt about her presence here was less clear, but it didn’t seem particularly positive.
“I see. The west parlor is ready for guests, I’ll arrange for tea. ”
As she and Silas walked into the house behind Poole, Arabella took the foyer in.
It was very fine, with marble floors and stuffy art.
Gilding was the fashion here, it seemed, for it seemed to dance along the edge of any surface that had been left still for more than a moment.
A surprise since Silas seemed anything but a gilding man.
He led her into a parlor off the ridiculous front hall and she caught her breath.
The gilding continued into this room, slashed across the edges of anything the designer could find.
It was even on the ceiling, outlining the carved plaster in…
well, she supposed the effect was meant to be elegance.
Gaudy was the word she would use, herself.
“Will you be offended if I tell you this house doesn’t seem to fit you?” she asked.
He stopped and looked around the room, almost as if he had never taken it in fully before. Then he glanced at her. “I’m letting it for the Season, so to be fair it isn’t mine to fit. It is dandified, isn’t it? Christ, the little figurines. They’re atrocious.”
He waved his hand toward a few of them on the mantelpiece.
There had to be at least a dozen porcelain monstrosities perched there.
Little people in different costumes, all meant to be the happy working class, she thought based on the tools each one held.
One had a shovel, another a tray. They all had blank little faces and delicate paint jobs.
She giggled. “Is that one meant to be a shepherd?”
He leaned in closer to the item in question and wrinkled his brow. “I think so. With silver, high-heeled slippers and a golden crook, no less. It’s a patent misunderstanding of what those of lesser rank live like.”
“Well, they all have that,” she mused.
She walked past him and moved to the window. It had a nice view of the street and the park across from it. Not Hyde Park, from where they’d come, but a nice smaller park, Wildwood. It was still a fashionable address, but not as flashy.
“Why did you let a place?” she asked. “I think you had a home here in London before, didn’t you?”
There was a slightest hint of a flinch that came across his handsome face. A pinching of his lips that told a tale before he even said a word.
“That house was given to me by my father. It was…complicated. When I left I gave it up. Sold it, actually, to help finance some of my adventures in America.”
She swallowed. She wasn’t in the dark about Silas’s circumstances. After all, she’d made a study of his past for years. But it was different to look him in the face while he discussed that past rather than simply read things or hear whispers.
“You left right after your father’s death,” she said.
Again, there was the ripple of pain but it slipped away when Poole entered the room with the tea service. He set it on the sideboard and then turned back toward them. “Is there anything else, Mr. Windham?”
“No.” Silas didn’t look at him. “That will be all. Thank you, Poole.”
The servant left and Silas shook his head as he moved to shut the door to the parlor behind him, then over to the sideboard.
“That prick truly hates me.” She blinked, uncertain if he was referring to his father or the butler.
“I suppose I should be happy it was Montague’s solicitor who made the arrangements for the rental, not his servants or else I never would have made the cut. Do you take milk or sugar?”
“Both,” she said. “Generously.”
He smiled over at her. “Of course you do.”
As he applied both to the drink, she asked, “Why does Poole hate you?”
“Oh, you know how it is,” he said with a grunt as he handed over her cup.
“Their society doesn’t like outsiders. He knows what I am and what I come from, just like everyone else.
My father didn’t try to shelter me from that and so all were allowed their opinions.
In Poole’s case, I assume he doesn’t think my kind belongs in an earl’s hallowed halls.
Even if I have the coin to pay for them and his ever so proper lordship doesn’t. ”
Arabella nodded. “Oh yes, Montague’s fall from grace has been publicly marked. This place isn’t tied to the entail, and he might actually lose the house. Someone ought to remind Poole that he wouldn’t have a position at all if you weren’t letting it.”
Silas seemed surprised for a moment that she knew so much about Montague, but then he shrugged. “Yes, but the earl has the right blood in his veins so that can be overlooked.”
They stared at each other a moment before she moved to the settee and took a place there. She sipped her tea and smiled up at him. “Well, this is perfect.”
“Good.”
She expected him to take the seat beside her, continue the seduction they’d started at the park.
Instead, he sat one of the chairs that faced the settee.
She felt his discomfort in that moment and what swelled up in her was a deep desire to offer him comfort.
That desire startled her, for it was one she’d mostly tamped down over the years.
If this man inspired it in her, that meant she had to be very careful.
No, she couldn’t get close to this one, not even a little. It was too dangerous.
She set her teacup down and got up. He staggered to his feet as she did so, still polite despite all the labeling of himself as a bastard who didn’t belong.
She smiled as she rested a hand on his chest and then slowly slid it up to wind it around the back of his neck.
His breath caught, his pupils dilated, taking away some of that lovely green that was so interesting.
When she lifted up on her tiptoes, he met her halfway for a kiss.
It was a kiss. That was the correct label, but just as before, when they’d kissed at the Donville Masquerade for the first time, it felt…
different. There was something raw and hungry and desperate about the way their lips met.
Like they lost who they were and found something else.
His arms came around her, tugging her to his chest and the kiss deepened.
She couldn’t help but moan, there was nothing artful to it.
The pleasure was just too sharp and deep and powerful not to react.
She dug her hands into his hair and held tight as the sensations washed her away for a moment or two. Then she fought back to the surface, gasping for breath when their lips parted. She stayed in his arms, staring up into that remarkable face and memorizing the lines of it up close.
“Show me the rest,” she murmured.
He blinked like he was coming out of a fog. “Of…of the house?” he asked.
She arched against him a fraction. “Of whatever you’d like, Silas.”
He caught her hand with a grunt and all but dragged her from the room. As they moved up the long hallway together, he pointed into empty rooms.
“Parlor,” he said. “Another parlor. Too many parlors. If I don’t name something, assume it’s another bloody parlor.”
She laughed.
“Library,” he said. “Study.” He pointed at the grand staircase they were rushing toward. “And the gateway to heaven.”
“Very pretty,” she said, even as she struggled to keep up with him when he tugged her up the stairs. At some point she staggered and he stopped, pivoting toward her.
“My apologies,” he said before he caught her around the waist. He flipped her up over his shoulder and continued his way up the stairs.
“Silas!” she burst out, unable to control her laughter. Certainly, his disapproving servants would hear her, know what they were about to do. She had no idea if that would cause him trouble later, but for now he didn’t seem to care. No, he was entirely driven to carry her up the hallway upstairs.
“I have no idea what any of these rooms are,” he said as he passed by the doors, this time closed. “One must assume family chambers and…I don’t know…let’s say that one is a medieval torture chamber, just for fun.”
He opened the door at the end of the hallway and carried her inside, through an antechamber and into the bedroom. He tossed her onto the bed and she was able to catch her breath from laughing and the excitement of being carried through a house like he was some barbarian bent on claiming her.
Being claimed seemed a very good idea, even better when he began stripping off his clothing and tossing it onto the floor without a care in the world for where it fell or how wrinkled it would be later. No, he was only focused on her.