Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Evie crept down the corridor like a thief.
Stealthily, she opened the door to her bedchamber and peered inside.
The low-burning lamps told her that Harkness had not waited up for her, which felt like a reprieve.
She couldn’t deal with her companion at this moment—couldn’t face yet another loved one she was now keeping secrets from.
Closing the door, she sagged against it, her heart thudding with a mixture of fear, guilt, and relief.
I did it. I paid the blackmailer.
She drew off her gloves with hands that shook. Going to the fire, she rubbed her clammy palms over her cheeks and tried to calm her nerves. Had she done the right thing? By meeting the fiend’s demands, had she simply opened the door to further extortion?
What choice did I have?
When she arrived at the greenhouse yesterday morning, she’d seen with dread that her journal lay upon her desk. She knew she had locked her notebook in the drawer; someone had invaded her sanctuary yet again. Forcing herself to flip through the pages, she’d found a blunt message:
I know what you did, and the world will too. The cost for my silence is a hundred sovereigns. Leave the money in the folly, tomorrow at midnight. Come alone. If you fail to meet these terms, the next note I send will be to your husband.
Panic had smothered her. Who had written this—who knew her secret?
The same hand had written the two notes, and while she didn’t recognize it, the bold strokes looked masculine.
Names and faces, blurred by the passing years, streaked through her head.
Why would someone threaten her now…when seven years had passed since Wilmington’s death, and she’d finally begun to believe that she might be safe?
You can hide, you little bitch. The memory of her stepfather’s slurred words, the ominous thump of his footsteps, made her freeze even now. But you can never escape. Not from me.
For years, running and hiding had been her method of survival. Yet this time, she wasn’t ready to go. She wasn’t ready to leave James.
Despite the tension between them, which had worsened since the departure of his family, she couldn’t bring herself to give him up.
She wanted to remain near him, even if he was chilly and aloof, for as long as possible.
She couldn’t let him find out what she’d done—couldn’t bear his condemnation.
Even worse, his honor would dictate that he protect her and stand by her…
which meant he would hate her even more when she destroyed his reputation and his future.
Thus, she’d gone to the gothic folly on the farthest edge of the estate.
Her heart thumping like a rabbit’s foot, she’d ventured into the deepest shadows of the stone structure and placed the purse of coins where it couldn’t be missed.
She’d paid the blackmailer with her savings—money she’d set aside in case of an emergency. Then she had fled without looking back.
Expelling a breath, she went over to the Aspidistra elatior.
It was one of the three things she had left of her mama.
Along with the worn copy of Culpeper’s Herbal and a magnificent string of pearls, she had taken the cast-iron plant with her everywhere.
It had survived the dark boarding house room she’d shared with Harkness and the windowless cell she’d been assigned in the Thurstons’ townhouse.
She stroked the edge of the long green leaf, taking heart from the plant’s sturdy, indestructible nature.
“We’re survivors, you and I,” she whispered. “We can withstand anything.”
The click of the door caught her by surprise. She jerked away from the plant, shocked to see James standing in the doorway between their rooms. That door hadn’t been opened for months, and his sudden appearance in her intimate space unleashed a wave of dread and longing—mostly the latter.
How she missed him. His steady, quiet strength and unshakeable honor.
It didn’t help that he looked deliciously masculine in his at-home attire.
His burgundy smoking jacket was expertly tailored to his broad shoulders, and his casual trousers skimmed his muscular legs.
His shirt was open at the collar, revealing the smooth bump of his throat and the barest hint of chest hair.
“We need to talk,” he said.
His sternness snapped her out of her aching reverie.
“Um…what about?” she asked.
He ran a gaze over her, and she was aware of the glaring differences between them. Unlike her golden god of a husband, she was not dressed in a distractingly sensual manner. For her dark errand, she’d chosen a serviceable black dress to blend with the shadows.
“Where were you?” he said abruptly.
Dash it.
Since the departure of James’s family, whatever fragile pretense of marital harmony they’d maintained had unraveled completely.
Most evenings, he had engagements, usually returning in the wee hours.
She hadn’t expected that he would be home…
much less standing here in her bedchamber.
Thus, she hadn’t anticipated the need to prepare an alibi.
“I was…I was engaged in my studies,” she said.
It was a plausible explanation.
“Try again.” The gaze he leveled at her was more steel than sky. “I looked for you in the greenhouse.”
Double dash it.
“I was in the garden.”
“Past midnight?”
“The moths visit the wallflowers after dusk, as you know. I was taking measurements and lost track of the time.”
When James narrowed his eyes, she plunged on.
“I must be thorough in my research if I hope to present my findings to the Botanical Society. No avenue can be left unexplored. You understand.”
“What I understand,” he said calmly, “is that you are lying to me, and I have no idea why.”
“I am not lying—”
“Another husband might wonder what his wife is hiding. He might, for example, suspect that she is having an affair.”
The idea was so preposterous that she gawked at him.
“I would never—”
“Then tell me where you were, Evie. What you were doing.”
“I told you. I was in the garden…studying the wallflowers.”
His eyes flared, his jaw clenching. He looked angry enough to shout—to shake her, if his hands weren’t balled.
Her past had taught her the warning signs of violence, and if it were any man other than James, her instinct would have been to run.
Yet she knew with every fiber of her being that her husband would never do her physical harm.
Even when she was hurting him. Guilt wrung her heart, and for an instant, she considered confessing everything: the depraved act she’d committed in the past, the blackmailer she was paying off, and the threat she posed to everything he held dear.
Burning fear kept her silent.
“Fine.” His voice was icy. “If you do not wish to discuss your activities, then you will listen to what I have to say about mine.”
Recalling his earlier reference to infidelity, a terrible thought struck her.
Had he suspected her of having an affair because…
because he was having one? She wasn’t na?ve; sophisticated couples often sought pleasure outside of the marital bed.
And the fact was that her own had seen little activity of late.
Yet the very idea of James being with another set off a blaze of possessiveness.
“What about your activities?” she said tightly.
He straightened his shoulders while her heart hammered against her ribs.
“Gosford is retiring, and I plan to run for his seat,” he said.
It took her a moment to register what he said. And another for the pounding in her ears and chest to subside.
“Oh.” She drew a breath, trying to think. “Will you win?”
James’s mouth twisted. “That is a vote of confidence, isn’t it?”
“That is not what I meant—”
“Friend and Dunsmuir believe that I am the party’s best chance of beating Ryerson. I have their backing and the support of others. It is my duty to serve the greater good, and now that this opportunity has arisen, I must step forward.”
“Of course,” she mumbled.
She felt so small, shrinking in the blaze of confidence in James’s gaze. Who was she to stand in the way of his ambition—his destiny to help others? And yet…
“We need to discuss this because it will affect you as well.”
James came to stand in front of her. His familiar scent of musk and sandalwood tantalized her senses. She was caught between opposing desires: to flee and to fling herself into his arms. She stayed rooted in place, trembling with yearning.
“I know how important your studies are to you and do not expect you to abandon them for the sake of my endeavors. However, I will require your presence on occasion.” He glanced at the cast-iron plant, touching his finger to a glossy tip.
“According to Dunsmuir and Friend, presenting a united domestic front is essential to my campaign’s success.
The General Election is only three months away, and during that time, I would appreciate your support. ”
His request and the careful way he made it pierced her like an arrow.
He had no idea what she would do for him—the lengths she would go to protect him.
Her dilemma wound around her like a thorny vine: if she stayed, she would be his Achilles’ heel.
Yet if she left, James would be faced with a different kind of scandal…
unless she could think of a way to disappear that wouldn’t harm his reputation.
“What happens in private is one thing.” He dropped his hand from the plant.
“In public, I shall be relying upon you to play the role of a contented wife. This contest will be a close one, and I will need your help to win, Evie. I have not asked for much, but I would have your word now that you will give me your best effort.”
If what he said earlier was an arrow, then his present request was like a blade, slicing clean through her.
“You haven’t asked anything of me, James.” The truth bled from her. “You’ve given me everything but never asked for a thing in return.”
He stared at her. In the silence, her heartbeat seemed loud and frantic.
“What has happened to us?” he asked, his voice hoarse and low. “Our marriage has been blown off-course, and for the life of me, I don’t know the cause of it. But I will fix it, if you tell me what needs to be done.”
His offer, noble and intense and so very James, drew a wretched tear from her.
When he thumbed it away, she trembled at the beauty of being touched by him, at the impossibility of her position.
There was no winning, only different ways to lose.
Telling him the truth would destroy his future for she knew the kind of man her husband was: a captain who would go down with a sinking ship.
Yet she couldn’t bring herself to continue pushing him away.
The agony of doing so was becoming unbearable, and she was hurting him too.
So she took the only avenue left. A path that drew them away from secrets and shadows and toward a truth beyond words. She threw her arms around his neck, pulled him close, and kissed him.
Of late, James didn’t know what to expect from his wife.
Her shifting moods had kept him on his toes, and he was now more certain than ever that she was hiding something.
He meant what he’d said: if there was a problem, she had only to tell him.
Instead, she was kissing him, and he was staggered by her.
By the lush hunger of her kiss. By the yielding softness of her curves pressed against his rigid edges.
She tasted like she had that night at Bottoms House—wild and sweet and alive with desire.
She was a different woman and yet the same.
A bud bursting into full, honeyed bloom.
When she parted her lips…well, he was only human, after all, and randy as hell.
The days of tension morphed into sudden, unstoppable lust. Palming the back of her head, he took her mouth the way he wanted to.
Fully, deeply, completely. She whimpered, melting against him.
His kiss turned into one of possession, and when she not only welcomed his driving tongue but suckled it, a bolt of heat shot straight to his groin.
Despite her outward shyness, Evie was not reserved in bed, praise God.
Before the recent cold spell, when she’d seemed to lose all interest in him, the heat between them had been heady and undeniable.
He had enjoyed peeling away the prim layers of his lady scientist to discover the sensual vixen beneath.
Her complexity had aroused and challenged him, and although she’d been a virgin on their wedding night, she’d proved a quick study.
With her, there were endless avenues of desire to explore.
While he enjoyed her mouth, she was doing some exploring of her own.
Her touch, reverent and eager, never failed to stir him.
Beneath his shirt, his muscles flexed as she slid her palms over his chest. She made a sound in her throat, one unique to her: half-purr, half-moan…
all sweet. She reached lower, tracing the jutting ridge of his erection.
Pleasure seized him as she caressed his bulging tip through his trousers, circling her thumb until his arousal seeped through the wool.
When she cradled his stones, giving them a light squeeze, he took control before it was too late.
“Tell me, Evie.” He captured her jaw in one hand, holding her gaze. “Tell me what is troubling you. Whatever is wrong, upon my honor, I will remedy it.”
She stared at him, then averted her eyes.
“Nothing is troubling me,” she said.
Fury surged with a force that he’d never experienced before. He grabbed her hand, which still gripped his cock, and removed it from his person.
“Do not touch me,” he bit out.
Red splotches stood out on her pale cheeks. “I…I thought you liked it when—”
“Do you know what I like, Evie? What I truly prefer?”
She swallowed, her eyes wide.
“Honesty,” he said in disgust. “Just the bloody truth. If you cannot give me that, then I want nothing from you.”
He walked out, slamming the door behind him.