Chapter 22
“Ithink a turn outside is in order,” Gareth said. “That was quite a feast and I suddenly feel portly.”
“Eva said Ives here requested half of it,” Lance said.
“I had a taste for a few old favorites. It was kind of Eva to tell the cook to indulge me,” Ives said. “Regrettably, I overindulged myself as a result. I will join you, Gareth. We can waddle down the street like two old uncles.”
“I will enjoy my port, then retire,” Lance said. “The ladies have already gone above, so I will entertain myself.”
Outside in the crisp, damp air, Ives and Gareth strolled in the mist. The houses at the far end of the block appeared ghostly, with only diffused light coming from a few windows and their dark shapes bleeding into the fog.
“Eva is delighted that you convinced Miss Belvoir to visit,” Gareth said.
“Your wife has been very kind to her. Not all women would be, after—”
“After finding you in her bed?”
“Yes. And after learning about her father.”
They paced on, around the corner.
“How compromised are you, Ives?” Gareth asked.
“Thoroughly.”
“Does it go beyond losing the Crown’s favor?”
“Far beyond it.”
“What Lance and I carried out of that carriage house was not in itself incriminating. You never mentioned what was in the box you hauled away, however.”
“No, I did not. And do not ask.”
“You are risking a lot for this woman. Lance thinks you have lost your mind.”
“In a manner of speaking, I suppose I have. Not the way he means, and not the way he would ever understand. You would, I think.”
Gareth gave him a long look, then stopped him with a hand on his arm. “I am the last one to lecture. I have no right, and—”
“You have every right, if any man does. As much as Lance. You will probably make more sense than he does too.”
Gareth laughed lowly, then turned serious.
“I have always been outside. I know the prospects from that vantage point. You have never been there. Do you think to keep this affair going once that trial starts? Even being the son and brother of Aylesbury will not help you much if you do. The scandal will be unbelievable. Your dealings with her, for her, will be poked and prodded and dissected until leaving your house will be something you dread.”
Gareth was correct. A year ago he might have braved it out. Secure in his honor, he could have withstood anything. He no longer owned that safe haven, however. He might never again.
“Is there a way out of this?” Gareth asked.
“She thinks so. She tried to throw me over. She will again.”
“Then, perhaps, for a while—”
“She does not know about that box, you see. I made a choice that night that I cannot, and will not, undo. A love affair with the daughter of a criminal has become the least of it.”
Mood subdued, Gareth continued their walk.
They had almost circled the block when Ives resumed the conversation. “I have spent most of the night debating whether to ask something of you.”
“I hope you know you can ask for anything.”
“Do not be so quick. It draws you into it, and more than I like. I have scoured my mind for an alternative, however, and there is none. I need to trust the man involved completely. Other than you and Lance, there are no such men.”
“I hope you do not want me to commit highway robbery.”
“Not quite. I need you to stand guard at that building the next few nights. With a pistol this time.”
Gareth was not so foolhardy as to ignore the implications. “Just me? Will Lance—”
“Aylesbury should not be further involved. He would not be at all if he had not inserted himself the other night.”
“He inserted himself quite a lot that night, didn’t he? Especially after we left him, I think.”
Ives smiled at the bawdy entendre. “He did speak of the ultimate sacrifice.”
“He did not return the next morning until ten o’clock. Mrs. Lavender has how many young ladies? Ten? Twelve? You don’t suppose he enjoyed them all, do you?”
“I have tried not to wonder. Now I will picture him staggering from chamber to chamber until he drops from exhaustion.”
They laughed, and Ives was grateful at Gareth’s ability to lighten even the darkest night.
“I will clean my pistol,” Gareth said as they entered the house. “Just tell me where, when, and what. I will be there. Now, I am going to retire.”
“I think I will have a smoke before I leave.”
Gareth grinned. He came over and cocked his head closely. “The servant stairs are more convenient to her chamber. Also more discreet.”
* * *
Ives entered the library, prepared to dally for the length of one cigar before seeking the servant stairs. He did not find the chamber empty the way he expected. Lance still sat in a comfortable chair near the fire, his port on a table near his arm.
“I thought you were retiring,” Ives said, taking a cigar from the box and preparing it.
“I have been thinking.”
“You cannot do that in your apartment?”
“I chose to do it here. Do you mind?”
He did. He would have to wait Lance out now. A very big, very comfortable bed waited, with a very lovely, very willing woman in it. He did not want to humor Lance when he could be with Padua instead.
Lance gestured lazily to a nearby chair, inviting him over. Ives poured himself some port and carried it and the cigar to the fireplace. He settled in. This might take hours.
“Miss Belvoir looked lovely tonight,” Lance said.
“I thought so.”
“Eva was happy to have another woman here.”
“We probably bore her.”
Lance fingered his glass, then looked over. “Did you know Miss Belvoir has been living in a chamber at the top of Mrs. Lavender’s house?”
Ives almost choked on cigar smoke. He cleared his throat. “Who told you that?”
“Susan. She is the young lady who entertained me there. She had all kinds of revelations.”
“You were chatting? You were supposed to be fucking.”
“We chatted between fucking. Have you never done that? Do you just lie there, silent, while you recover?”
“I am mostly astonished to learn you spent all that time with one of them. I assumed that you intended to spread the ducal favor far and wide.”
“It was my plan, but when Susan let me know she was not averse to ignoring many of Mrs. Lavender’s fussy rules, I thought I would do best staying the course, as it were.”
Ives trusted Lance would now lose himself in waxing nostalgic about his visit to his youthful haunt. Alas, it was not to be.
“She said that Miss Belvoir introduced herself to all of them. Sat to a meal with them. Said her father was a partner, and she was now too. I am not a fastidious man, Ives. It is not for me to lecture—”
“I’ll say.”
“However, is it a good idea to bring her here when Eva is in residence? For someone who never let his women near the family, your blindness to basic propriety with this madam is troubling.”
“She is not a madam.”
“So Susan had it wrong?”
Ives puffed away.
Lance waited, all curiosity.
“It is very complicated,” Ives said.
“Take your time. I have all night.”
“I don’t.”
Lance glanced to the ceiling. “Ah. Of course. The dinner was only the prelude. The symphony has yet to play. Well off with you then, to lead the tempo with your baton. You can explain it all tomorrow.”
“I have nothing to explain to you.”
“But you do. Our breaking into that building, for example. We stole something. You stole something else. All of it is important, I am sure. All if it has to do with Miss Belvoir. I think another adventure is going to occur as well, because it all smelled of a job unfinished. Do not even try to leave me out of the denouement, when it comes. I will make your life hell if you do.”
Ives stubbed out his cigar. Lance could make his life hell. He managed to do that without trying. If he put his effort to it—
“Out of curiosity, how did you pay Mrs. Lavender, Lance?”
“With a twenty-pound note.”
“She gave you notes back, then?”
Lance laughed. “Many. There isn’t a whore in London worth more than two or three.”
“Do you have any of those notes on you now?”
Lance thought about it, then rummaged in his pockets. He deposited several crumpled banknotes on the table beside him. “I expect those are them. They were on my dressing table. I must have thrown them there when I came back.”
Ives picked up the notes. He smoothed them, then carried them to the lamp.
“I trust they are good,” Lance said.
Ives set them back on the table.
“Good, and not printed on that little press we found in the cellar, that is,” Lance added.
“They all look to be genuine.”
Lance peered at them. “You are sure? Some of these fellows are experts with the burin.”
“I am sure.” He walked to the door. “I am leaving now.”
Lance just smiled at him.
“If you cannot sleep, Lance, you might spend the time doing something more worthwhile than wondering about my inexplicable lack of propriety. You might, for example, clean your pistols.”
* * *
Padua heard the door to the dressing room open. She heard boot steps, then saw the tall shadow at the dressing room’s threshold. It disappeared, and muffled sounds came out of the other chamber.
Her body grew sensitive to the sensation of the sheet’s fabric against her bare skin. Her breasts swelled and firmed as anticipation teased her.
Ives reappeared and walked to the bed. He was naked. He stood beside her. He drew off the sheet and looked at her.
She looked at him too. The small lamp’s light washed him in a golden glow that defined his form in highlights and deep shadows. His eyes appeared as deeply green as a dense forest’s foliage. His face, always so handsome, held the hard angles that reflected his desire.
She wondered what game he would choose to play, or if there would be a new one. It surprised her when he joined her, and wrapped her in a commonplace embrace. His gaze moved over her face slowly while his fingers twisted lazily in a strand of her hair.
“There is nothing ordinary about you, Padua. Not even your beauty.”
It was not said like an easy flattery, but instead thoughtfully while he subjected her to that gaze. She believed he really meant it, even though no one before Ives had ever called her beautiful.
He rose up on his arm, so he could watch his fingertips trace along her body.
She had expected hard, even violent passion, so this meandering caress charmed her.
Then she realized what he was doing. He was making memories, much as she had done several times now.
He was storing this night in his head where he might visit again.
It touched her deeply that he sought to do that. He had not liked it when she broke things off. Perhaps there had been more to it than wounded pride, the way she had assumed.
He kissed her slowly, deeply, wonderfully.
Her heart stretched and filled until it ached.
His caresses began guiding her out of the everyday world, toward the rare existence that she experienced when he controlled her pleasure.
He knew her very well now, knew her body and how to make the pleasure sweet, then maddening, then so powerful it shattered her hold on herself.
He used all his skill, as if he wanted her to remember too.
The intimacy deepened along with the pleasure, the two so intertwined that they became one.
It awed her, moved her, so that her heart held on to both desperately, just as she held on to him.
Yes, her mind chanted, accepting everything she experienced, even the sweet ache that colored the beauty with sadness.
He came over when the first tremors of her release tantalized her. He bent her knees, then lifted her legs over his shoulders. Braced on his arms, he looked down between their bodies and watched how he entered her. He closed his eyes at the sensation. “Yes.” His own affirmation echoed hers.
She watched what it did to him. She never had before. She watched how the pleasure both hardened his expression and transformed it. She watched how his gaze both ravished her and adored her. She saw how he sought signs of what she wanted, and made sure he answered her need.
Yes, she breathed as he moved in her. Yes, aloud now, when he thrust harder.
She laid her palms on his chest above her, and his heartbeat pulsed into her body.
Yes, she cried as wildness set in and her mind narrowed until it knew only him.
Then she even lost hold of him, and the pleasure tightened and broke and screamed.
He waited for her on the other side, his heart pounding beneath her palm, his breathing ragged. He moved her legs down and lowered onto her with a never-ending kiss on her neck.
She filled her embrace with him, and her head with his scent and sounds, and her soul with his care. Have you fallen in love with him, Padua? It is not the same as desire or passion. Yes, not the same, but not so different. Not separate. Have you fallen in love with him? Yes.