Chapter 15 #2
It was torturous to speak the words aloud, to wait for the look of horror that would surely cross Aislynn’s face as he voiced his concerns.
He had told himself time and again that there was no earthly way possible that he could have left Spade’s, gone to Covent Garden and murdered Miss Wilkes and returned home to await the messenger in such a short amount of time.
Then again, Cordell was not discounting any possibility at this point, even if it might incriminate himself.
He couldn’t help but wonder if something dangerous and deadly had been unleashed inside of him when he’d lost himself so completely with Aislynn.
He had certainly felt as though something had broken free, but perhaps the harsh truth was that something had just merely… broken.
“Do not be ridiculous.”
A harsh laugh escaped him. “Am I? Because I am not so confident in myself.”
Aislynn hit the roof of the carriage and it came to a slow, shuddering halt.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“I am leaving this asinine conversation.”
Before Cordell could react, she had turned the handle and stepped down to the ground, slamming the door on her exit.
Muttering a curse, Cordell quickly followed suit. By the time he’d tossed a coin to the driver and caught up to her she was halfway down the street, her skirts swishing angrily with every step she took. “Aislynn—”
She turned on him, her finger poised in the air toward him.
“No. You do not get to address me so informally if you are simply going to discount yourself in such a way. I will not stand for it. You are not your father, and the only villain I can currently see is the devil sitting on your shoulder whispering that you are not worthy of happiness or love.”
She exhaled heavily and while a quick glance around proved that there was no one within direct earshot, Cordell did not care to have such an intimate conversation in the middle of the street. He grasped her elbow and steered her toward a nearby alley, thankfully without any sort of resistance.
However, when he released her, she made no attempt to yank her arm away in a show of defiance. “I need to be at the theatre getting ready for tonight’s performance, yet, here I am arguing with you. Again.”
Despite his doubts and self-loathing, Cordell found his lips began to twitch. “It does seem to be a habit we share of late, does it not?”
He was glad when her perfect lips kicked up in one corner.
“I daresay neither one of us is willing to concede on this subject.” She tilted her head and crossed her arms, staring at him pointedly.
“At the same time, I will not accept defeat. If I was not already convinced of your innocence, my body would not have responded to you the way it did, I can promise you that.”
Cordell could feel his breathing change, deepen.
“I want to believe that I am not the monster that I fear will rear its ugly head someday. You have no idea how much I do not want that to happen, to be able to live a normal life with a family—” He broke off when his words began to clog with husky emotion.
Clearing his throat, he added more firmly, “But I have long given up that hope. It is why I am determined others do not share the same dark fate. I will not lose you to this threat should it cost me my life.”
She lifted a gloved hand and placed it on his cheek. “I am not going anywhere, Cordell.”
Time slowed to a halt. Her breath was escaping her slightly parted lips in a soft, white cloud. He did not feel the cold and although her cheeks were rosy from the winter air, it didn’t appear as though she noticed it either.
The temperature was rising between them and he could not retreat from it any more than he could retreat from his own failings.
He reached out and pulled her to him, crushing her against his chest as he brought his mouth down in a sweet assault that left them both clinging to each other.
Cordell was starting to become afraid with how much he needed her, how much he relied on her to be there when he didn’t realize he was looking in that direction.
He knew it was wrong to drag her down further into the depths of his personal hell, but devil take it, he could not restrain himself.
When they parted, she started to reach for the fall of his trousers. “I want you, Cordell. Let me prove that you are not alone in these battles. I am here for you, if you will just let me into your heart the way I let you into my body.”
Cordell clenched his jaw so tightly he wondered if it might crack.
He could not engage in a carnal relationship with her in such a dangerous setting as if she was some sort of dockside whore or one of Mary’s courtesans, but he found his shaking hands starting to lift her skirts.
How could he deny them both what they wanted when she was as essential to him as his next breath?
He slid his hand along her core to find her wet and ready for him.
He guided his cock to her entrance and, with an urgent thrust of his hips, fully impaled her.
She would have cried out but he swallowed the sound with another kiss.
Grasping her hips, he urged her to lift her legs.
She wrapped them around his waist and threw her arms across his shoulders and clung to him as he began to ride the passionate tempest threatening to drag them under and drown them both.
If this was the way he would die, he was not averse to such a death.
Over and over again, he slid in and out of her until he was nearly delirious from the pleasure of her feminine walls. They clenched him tightly, urging him to take more, the friction building until there was nothing left but the ecstasy that awaited.
“Cordell…”
His name came out like a soft plea and it was enough to send him spiraling over the edge. She moaned, burying her face in his neck as he increased his pace and exploded, spilling more of himself inside of her than just his release. “God, yes…”
He kissed her with all of the abandon he was feeling in that moment, all the freedom that he could not offer, but yearned to give.
He did not want to know what she might have said, could not have expressed the same emotions.
It was enough just to be with her, to be joined together.
Words were not needed. He did not want them to spoil the magic they had just shared.
He slowly let her back to her feet and she shook her skirts back into place. He reached out and grasped her chin with his thumb and forefinger. “Can I trust that you will come back to my townhouse now?”
She lifted her chin slightly, the stubbornness she wore as a cloak around her shoulders making an unwanted appearance. “Do you really think it is wise?”
He expelled a heavy breath. “I know you do not want me to say it is because I can be assured you are safe if you are under my roof, but I will express the same sentiments and be damned.”
Cordell waited for her to rail at him, to refuse to leave Spade’s, but he surprised her by leaning forward and giving him a light kiss. “I will come back on one condition.” He lifted a brow, waiting. She smiled broadly. “If I can be the one to protect you.”
He laughed. “If those are the terms that I must agree to, then of course, I will gladly accept.”
* * *
Aislynn shouldn’t be feeling as light as she was as she waited to take her place on the stage that evening. There had been a murder just hours before, yet she couldn’t seem to stop smiling. Guilt ravaged her while at the same time a thread of happiness dared to intercede.
Happy. It was almost a foreign word to her.
She had never recalled a time she had truly been…
happy. There were moments she was content, but as far as a real, abiding joy because of her circumstances, she could not remember an instance before Cordell when a smile seemed to blossom so effortlessly on her face.
She stared at her reflection in the dressing room mirror, wearing her costume for that evening, and realized that the role she was meant to portray had a somber tone. She suddenly wondered if her performance would be a convincing one.
A brisk knock sounded on her door as one of the crewmen shouted through the wood. “Fifteen minutes until curtain!”
She did not need to pinch her cheeks to gain any color.
Between the cold and the events from earlier, the rosy hue had not yet dissipated.
It was as if all the sordid events from the past several days were nothing but a nightmare from which she was starting to awaken.
It would be so easy to lose herself with Cordell and pretend that nothing could threaten this newfound sense of complete harmony.
The door to her dressing room opened and closed.
“I’m coming!” she shouted over her shoulder without turning around. She was grabbing for one of the props for the opening act when a voice spoke up behind her.
“Hello, daughter.”
Aislynn expelled a slight gasp as her left hand immediately went to her right arm where the bone had never fully healed.
A frisson of fear slithered up her spine as she slowly turned to face the woman who had spoken.
She had not laid eyes on Imogen Malone in months, had imagined that her mother had finally met her demise at the hands of one of her paramours or perhaps her own hand by way of laudanum or drink, but she stood in front of her looking as hale and hearty as ever.
She was just as Aislynn remembered—and had tried to forget. “What are you doing here?”
The older woman gave a toss of her light-colored hair, the dull shade threaded with lines of white that had slowly become a new addition with her age. “Is it a crime to want to see my only child?” she returned defensively.