Chapter Thirteen
Blackwood did not look back to see whether they were followed. He did not need to.
He crossed the edge of the dance floor at an angle that suggested nothing more than impatience with the crowd.
A gloved hand was steady at Elizabeth’s elbow, merely firm enough to redirect her course without spectacle.
He guided her along the perimeter of the ballroom, where potted palms cast long shadows against damask walls and conversations swelled loudest. The musicians, absorbed in a quadrille, provided convenient cover.
Laughter erupted near the refreshment table just as they passed, masking the soft click of a door handle being tested and released.
He chose a passage partially concealed behind a tapestry depicting a triumph of shepherds eternally victorious in fields that had never known compromise. The fabric shifted faintly as they passed behind it, swallowing them from view.
The corridor beyond was dimmer. Their footsteps, once absorbed by thick carpets, now sounded against polished wood. Blackwood’s pace carried the confidence of a man accustomed to navigating private spaces.
Blackwood opened the library door without hesitation.
The library was lit only by two lamps turned low against the shelves, their glow softened by green glass shades. Bookcases rose in orderly ranks along the walls, leather spines absorbing the light. A clock ticked steadily on the mantel, each measured second amplified by the absence of music.
He stepped inside first. Elizabeth followed, and Blackwood closed the door behind them. The latch settled into place with a muted click.
Blackwood removed his gloves slowly, one finger at a time, never breaking eye contact with Elizabeth as he did so. The mask remained in place. The suggestion of horns cast angular shadows across his brow.
He did not speak. Instead, he adjusted one of the lamps downward, lowering its flame further until the shelves fell into deeper shadow. The gesture was a practical precaution.
Only then did he turn back toward her.
Elizabeth removed her mask first. She did not know why she did it so quickly, only that the concealment was suddenly intolerable.
She wanted him to see her. Fully. Without ornament or artifice.
Blackwood followed her example more slowly, seemingly requiring the moment to steady himself.
When he looked at her again, his gaze was bare of all courtesy.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Elizabeth said softly, surprising herself, “You failed to call for me after the opera.” The words were simple. The hurt and confusion beneath them ran far deeper.
Blackwood exhaled slowly. “I believed distance was necessary for your protection.”
“Why did you say nothing? You could have sent word. It felt like dismissal,” she replied.
He turned back, and within two strides he stood before her.
His hands came up, neither rough nor gentle, only urgent, catching her wrists and pressing them flat against his chest. “Feel this,” he said, his voice low and uneven.
“Do you see what your mere presence does to me?” Her breath stuttered as her palms met the solid warmth beneath his coat.
His heart raced harder than she had felt it before.
“Had I stayed by your side,” he continued, “the world would have known how I felt about you. I could not allow that. Not when there are those who would use it against us. But had I known that you desired me there, nothing could have kept me away.”
Something inside her gave way at last. Elizabeth surged forward, her hands sliding from his chest to his shoulders, her mouth finding his with fierce intent.
The kiss was nothing like the first. There was no hesitation this time.
It was possession and release as though they had both been waiting for permission neither had been willing to fully give before.
Blackwood responded instantly. He lifted her without effort, pressing her back against the wall between two towering bookcases, his body aligned with hers so completely that she knew the heat of him through every layer of fabric.
His mouth moved to her throat, then lower, his breath hot against her skin.
Her hands fisted in his coat.
“Alistair,” she whispered, the sound torn from her.
He groaned low and unguarded, and the sound did something dangerous to her resolve. His hands slid down her sides, reverent and demanding all at once, memorizing her shape. The library seemed to contract around them.
His mouth returned to hers, slower now, deeper, trying to taste restraint into the kiss and failing. Elizabeth arched into him without thought, her body answering a question her mind had not yet finished forming.
His hand slipped beneath the edge of her bodice, and she gasped as his touch found the sensitive bud of her nipple.
He lingered there as though the act itself mattered less than the promise of it.
A second groan escaped him, rougher this time, as his mouth bent to trace the path his hand had just warmed.
Elizabeth could only whimper in response as new sensations coursed through her body.
Blackwood found her other nipple then, this time gently grazing his teeth across her sensitive flesh, sending heat straight to her belly.
Her legs instinctively seized around his thigh, willing him to provide her with the sweet release she seemed to so desperately seek.
Blackwood responded to her urgency, moving against her in a rhythm that matched her own need.
Then he stopped.
The change was abrupt enough to startle her.
He rested his forehead against hers, his breath uneven, his grip loosening though his body remained close.
“This is the wrong moment,” he said hoarsely.
“Not because I do not want to—God knows I do—but if we continue, I won’t be able to stop and there are simply too many doors in this house.
Far too many servants who might wander where they are unwelcome.
The latch seems insecure, and I won’t have your reputation ruined. ”
The words lingered between them, heavy and intimate. “There will be time later for this,” he continued, his voice steadier now though his hands betrayed him, lingering as he helped her regain order. A vow.
He stepped back just far enough to help her retie the laces he had undone, his touch careful now, reverent in a different way. When he finished, he remained by her side.
Elizabeth met his gaze, her voice steady now, though her heart still raced.
“You make me feel —” she hesitated, searching for the right word “— lost.” Blackwood grinned ruefully.
“You have much the same effect on me, madam. Despite my perhaps less than sterling reputation, I do not often find myself absconding with women to a darkened library corner to take liberties or accosting innocents on the way home from the opera. I have known you only a short time and yet you have turned my entire world upside down. I pride myself on discipline and focus, and I now find my attention wandering, recalling your touch and the scent of you. You consume my every thought. My intent tonight was only ever to make you feel desired. To make you mine.” He paused and Elizabeth nearly came undone.
Blackwood raked his hand through his hair.
“I know we perhaps started off on shaky footing, but know that I would spend my days adoring you and proving the truth behind my words. However, there are other forces at play that currently bind my hands.”
Elizabeth paused, letting his words wash over her. She had come to the masquerade intending to reveal Blackwood’s role in Mark’s affairs and instead the evening had turned out very differently than expected.
“You are being blackmailed,” she said, her thoughts returning to his sister’s remarks, “and passing funds through Mark’s foundation.
” He looked at her. “Someone has learned of your sister’s circumstances and is using that against you.
” Blackwood closed his eyes briefly. “When she spoke…” Elizabeth trailed off.
He opened his eyes and looked at her. “She does not understand the full extent of the damage that knowledge can do. I have purposefully kept her sheltered from the truth,” he said.
Elizabeth searched his face, finding only naked vulnerability.
Her past had taught her to distrust men such as Blackwood, but she felt she no longer had a choice and took a calculated risk.
She was uncertain as to whether she could fully trust him and was not sure how intimately he was connected to what she was facing, but there was no other remedy at present.
“There is more,” Elizabeth replied. Silence stretched between them.
Elizabeth told Blackwood what she had discovered at the publishing house and in Mark’s accounts.
She spoke of the pamphlets and matching account entries.
Elizabeth described her theories about the ciphers and told him how she had altered a recent pamphlet and the consequences.
Blackwood listened and began to fill in additional pieces of a shakily formed puzzle.
“I reviewed the foundation’s accounts,” she concluded, “Your name appeared frequently throughout.”
Blackwood’s expression held its composure. “In what capacity?”
“Whenever funds seemed to deplete from the account,” she replied, “There you were. Lincolnshire appears at frequency throughout the ledger.”
The word Lincolnshire lingered between them. He could have feigned confusion or attempted to deflect. Instead, he regarded her with recalculation over any genuine surprise.
“You believe my assistance was improper,” he said, his voice level.
“I believe it was intentionally placed.”
“And you find my intention suspect?”
“When it operates unseen,” she countered, her gaze unwavering. “Why did you hide your actions from Mark?”
The silence that followed was heavier now. Blackwood moved no closer, yet the space between them was altered.
“You assume I sought to engineer his vulnerability,” he said at last. He did not blink. “Mark’s project required stability.”
“And you supplied it,” she said. “Without disclosure.”
He nodded. “Yes.”
The admission shocked her more than denial might have. “Why?”
“Because public failure would have invited predation.”
The answer was smooth. Logical. Entirely plausible. “And tonight?” she pressed, refusing to let plausibility soothe her. “The men near the column. The black enamel masks. One inclined his head to you.”
“A Duke is acknowledged in any room.”
“Not in that way.”
A tension entered his expression. He understood precisely what she had observed. “You overestimate my reach.”
“I do not,” she replied. “A man of your stature does not need to raise his voice to command obedience. Influence follows you without invitation.”
“And you fear I am aligned with them,” he said.
“I fear you are aligned with some force that intends to do harm.”
He studied her then. The calculation in him was no longer hidden. “I am aligned with stability,” he said. “And stability is rarely accomplished through transparency.”
“That is not an answer,” she said again, though softer now.
“It is the only one I can give without endangering others.” The implication landed heavily.
“If any harm were to come to Mark,” she continued, holding his gaze despite the tremor beneath her composure, “if you were to—”
“You will discover that I have not harmed him,” he said evenly.
Not harmed. The phrasing lingered like a shadow. “And if you are mistaken in your calculations?” she asked.
“Then I will answer for the consequences.” There was no defensiveness in him. No plea for belief. Only the authority of a man accustomed to bearing decisions others never see.
Elizabeth felt the ground beneath her certainty shift. He was either the architect of the pattern she had traced or its most disciplined counterweight.
At last, Blackwood spoke again. “There is much I cannot reveal. Too many others are at risk.” He reached for her and placed a kiss against her forehead. “But we will not fail,” he added. “Trust me.”
He had said we.
Elizabeth warmed at the dangerous comfort of being included in a force larger than herself.
He spoke as a man who intended to stand beside her.
And yet. She was no longer certain that he orchestrated what was happening to Mark.
Still, she did not mistake that for safety.
He was an aristocrat. He had been raised to believe that power, properly held, must be preserved.
Those institutions endured because men like him steadied them.
He might oppose the Trust’s methods. He might resent its leverage.
But if forced to choose between dismantling a system and reforming it, what would he do?
And where, in that calculus, would she stand?
If the moment came when their interests no longer aligned, when his title, his peers, his inherited obligations pressed against her insistence on exposure, would he bend toward her? Or toward the structure that had shaped him since birth?
Trust me.
The words were simple and earnestly spoken. But trust, she had learned, was not granted in declarations in particular those of aristocratic men. It was proven when compromise became inconvenient.