Chapter 8
As Dominic led Celia Briarwood up the creaking stairs through the narrow, dark hall that went to his abode, he hesitated.
It was very tempting to stop on those steps, pivot, pick her up in his arms, sling her over his shoulder—which he could easily do despite the fact that she was no small thing—carry her back down those stairs, thrust her into her coach, and tell her and the driver to hie off to Heron House.
And then he’d have a strong word with Lord Hector about his daughter, no matter how capable she was, staying out of in area that was death for many a young woman.
But he knew that if he did such a thing, she might actually put up quite an excellent fight. The two of them could roll down the stairs and end up in each other’s arms in a way that he might not desire.
She was something to behold, and he loved that about her. Still, he was not truly ready to have to explain to someone why he chose to live the way that he did or see her nose wrinkle or her brow furrow as she took in his accommodations.
Yet here he was.
Now, the fact that she worked in the East End made it more likely she would not disdain his abode, and yet it was almost beyond his ability to fathom that she could indeed approve of how he lived, let alone not judge it.
Dominic stopped before his door with its splintering wood, took out his key, thrust it into the lock, and turned it.
The tumbler clicked, and he swung open the panel that was quite creaky and strode into the room.
It was growing darker and darker outside, and so the shadows of his few furnishings looked almost ghost-like.
She followed him, her footsteps soft despite the fact that she wasn’t delicate, which he quite liked actually. When a man was as big and as tall as he was, it was quite nice to know that he didn’t have to be afraid of breaking the woman he was going to…
His gaze swung to his small bed, long but not grand like the beds in the manors of his peers, and his heart began to beat apace because, quite frankly, he knew exactly what he’d like to do there. With her.
Still, he wasn’t a scoundrel.
He was a gentleman of the world. He had known many an adventure, but he was not a monster.
But nor would he deny that she had filled many a dream over the last weeks and that she had been the vision to which he longed to give into release.
Dominic strode into the room, trying to be all business, and headed to the candle that was perched upon a table. He lit it quickly. The scent of the struck flint and tinder caused her nose to wrinkle.
Perhaps she was far too accustomed to the lighting of candles in her house. No doubt, servants did it for her.
How he loved to light candles, seeing a light flicker to life in a dark room.
She peered around. He waited silently and he stood, feeling like one of the statues in the British Museum, a place he had only just recently visited and was frankly not sure if he loved or loathed.
For it was a place that had collected many beautiful things from around the world.
But he had a strong feeling that most of those things had not been taken easily and were collected without the permission of the nations from which they came.
Britain was remarkable, but it was a place of licensed privateers who went about the world taking whatever they wanted to. Might made right. It was a tenet he loathed, but it seemed to be true more often than not.
Certainly, when one looked at the annals of history, it was true. There were brief moments where democracy reigned, where people cared about the will and the wants of people less than the powerful.
Now did not seem to be such a time. There had not been such a time for years, for centuries. Perhaps it had never existed. Perhaps only such sentiments would exist in the documents written by lofty, aspiring men who had feet of clay.
He swallowed, realizing he had gone off on a mental tangent, and she was slowly moving about the small room, her gloved hands trailing over his few furnishings and books.
He loved books, but they were quite heavy and sometimes difficult to carry.
So he often went to whatever lending libraries there were.
And then once he had read a book, he returned it.
Or he bought books and gave them away to those who could not afford them.
“This is where you sleep,” she mused, stopping before the bed. Her sage-green skirts skimmed the floor and danced against the bed frame.
His throat tightened. He knew exactly what he wanted to do with those skirts. “It is,” he managed, his voice more of a growl than he’d intended.
“And it is not too small for you?” she challenged. “You are a large gentleman.”
He laughed. “Is that your concern? That it is too small for me?”
“Well,” she said, stroking her fingers along one of the posts, “I live in quite a large house. And the beds do match.”
“I would imagine,” he said, unable to take his gaze from where her hand lingered upon his bed.
“And you do not wish to live in a large house? You have the wealth, the money, the power to live in any house you choose, and this is where you choose?” she asked, twirling her hands, gesturing wide as she took in the small room again.
“Are you’re not cold here at night? You will be when winter comes. ”
“I’m accustomed to all sorts of weather, Miss Briarwood,” he returned. “You needn’t fear for me.”
“Apparently,” she said. “But this is a very dangerous part of London, so I do fear for you. I don’t think you’ve ever encountered anything like it before. You see, the people here are driven quite hard.”
“Oh, I am aware of it,” he countered. “And it’s why I chose it.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“My father…” he began. He closed his eyes for a moment before he all but launched, “My father believed in the equality of man. You see, he left this country because he so believed in the ideas written in the great documents of the last century, and he wanted to fight and make those things true. And when he did fight and those things weren’t made true, he refused to abandon the people that he had fought for. ”
“Oh,” she said, her eyes welling with understanding. “Oh dear. How horrible for him.”
“Yes,” he said, his jaw tightening, and he was surprised by how her sympathy struck him. “It was very horrible for him.”
“But not horrible for you?”
“Not horrible for me,” he said. “Of course it was terribly sad, and it does weigh me down, but I was not the idealist that my father was. I saw quite early on how people actually are.”
“Yes,” she said warily, “you told me. You don’t need to say it again.”
He groaned. “How true. I won’t bore you.”
“Oh, Your Grace,” she said softly, “I do not think you could ever bore me.”
And he tried to see the room through her eyes as she looked at the bed that was made of rope with a mattress on it.
He had to pull the ropes tight every night so that he could sleep comfortably.
He liked simple things. Oh, he could admire the beauty of great houses, but he had trouble sleeping in them because he could not forget how regular people lived and how they suffered. His father had taught him well on that.
She teased her hands over the books, peering at the philosophical titles. “It seems to me that you still have the heart and mind of an idealist,” she declared. “Even if you say you do not. These books seem to suggest it.”
“They were my father’s,” he said quietly. “They are books that I cannot let go.”
She studied him, then pronounced, “You are a romantic, Your Grace.”
“I am the opposite of a romantic,” he countered a touch too quickly.
“I can’t agree.” She folded her arms over her Spencer coat, which pressed her breasts together under the simple fabric of her elegantly cut apparel.
“You are grand, bombastic, larger-than-life, just like so many people in my family, and you want to change the world for the better. You are a romantic.”
“I am not,” he insisted, “because romantics never get their way. They die young or they are crushed by their romanticism.”
Her pert lips pursed. “That sounds most grim.”
“It is not grim. It is quite liberating,” he ground out. “When you realize that romance is something that belongs in novels, then you are free.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh my. What a proclamation.”
“Are you a romantic?” he asked.
“Not a bit of it,” she said easily. “I’ve never had a romantic bone in my body, nor a desire for one.”
“Then perhaps we are well suited,” he rumbled, rather liking the idea.
Her brows rose. “Suited for what exactly?”
He hesitated. “I don’t know, but you are here. Why are you here?”
She cleared her throat and quickly looked back to the books, as if the few volumes needed much more consideration. “Because I wanted to make sure that you didn’t have your throat slit at night.”
“I don’t believe that,” he murmured, wondering… Wondering if perhaps she had dreamt of him too.
“It’s true,” she affirmed. “It would be so easy for a cutpurse to creep into this room and kill you while you’re sleeping, but you don’t seem to have much of value here. Where do you keep your clothes and things?”
“I have a few items in that trunk,” he explained, pointing to the iron box in the corner. “And, of course, I do actually have a few things at that mausoleum that I’m going to tear down. It seems that to go about in London society, one does actually have to have things.”
A bell of amused laughter tumbled from her. “Yes, it does. Most annoying, I agree. But if you dislike it so much, why are you determined to go out into society? You don’t have to. You could be like me.”
He took a slow step towards her, his gaze traveling over her form and the way her gown caressed it, but most of all, he let his eyes wander to her face and considered her mind that he admired so very much.
“I think I would rather be like you,” he said gently. “But isn’t it a problem for you too? You go from a polished, opulent house to an impoverished location every day? How do you resolve that?”