Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The storm broke without warning. Wind drove rain against the panes and found every gap in the windows. Hugh lay still as lightning flashed beyond the glass, illuminating the faded French wallpaper and the dust sheet covering the armoire.
Not his room. His mother often slept there.
Not his father’s. He’d rather hang than cross the threshold.
A forgotten chamber at the far end of the house. One untouched by memory. No portraits. No ghosts. No reason for the past to find him.
Yet still he struggled to catch his breath.
He counted the seconds from the bolt to the next thunderclap.
Five. A mile away and moving closer.
Better to measure the storm than think about the cupboard beneath the stairs.
Another flash illuminated the room.
He closed his eyes.
It made no difference.
He could see the cupboard door.
He opened his eyes again.
Too late.
He could feel the rough wood beneath his fingernails. Smell the damp. Hear his father’s measured footsteps echoing in the hall. The chime of the case clock counting the hours. His own heartbeat drumming in the dark.
He sat bolt upright and dragged a hand across his brow. Forced his thoughts elsewhere. To her.
Miss Vane …
She slept on the opposite side of the house.
He imagined undoing the braid in her hair. Golden strands tumbling loose across his pillow. The scent of roses warm on her skin. The soft yield of her lips against his. The sound she made when he deepened the kiss.
Yet the bastard always found a way back into his head.
Splinters healed. Some wounds did not.
He whipped back the coverlet and pulled on his trousers and shirt. He needed air. Something to drown out the storm inside. Brandy. Straight from the bottle.
He crept downstairs and headed for the library. It was dark, the musty smell of paper a welcome distraction. Books. Journals. Facts. Things that made sense. Everything he loved because his father despised them.
The brandy waited on a table beside his grandmother’s wing chair. A bottle bought in Bromley, not found on a dusty shelf. Rowton knew what this visit would cost him.
Hugh settled into the worn leather, pulled the stopper free and took a long swallow.
The burn scorched his throat. He took another swig to toast her memory. The only person in this house who’d given a damn. She’d called him Hugh and stroked his hair, not the Boy and tanned his hide.
For a few blessed moments, there was just the rain and the growl of thunder. The hiss against the glass. The rattle of the panes.
A creak in the hall gave him pause.
He strained to listen. Lightning forked across the sky. The next flash lit the room. His hand tightened on the bottle.
The old dread stirred before reason could intervene.
No. There was only one person roaming Stonefold tonight.
Not Rowton. Not a damn ghost.
Miss Vane.
The library door eased open.
He’d been wrong about the braid. Her hair tumbled loosely over her shoulders. The sight hit him harder than the brandy. His gaze dropped lower, and he could have cursed his stupidity. The nightdress did little to disguise the figure beneath.
He took another drink but tasted none of it.
The distraction he needed had found him.
“If you’ve come for brandy, you’ll have to drink from the bottle.” He closed his mouth over the rim and took a quick sip.
“I’ve not come for brandy.” She entered his sanctuary, closing the door behind her to keep out the draught. Her gaze moved to the bottle in his hand, then to the chair as though it told her enough. “Perhaps I should take the bottle. I’m too slight to carry a drunken man to bed.”
He snorted. “You sound like a wife.”
“Or a concerned friend wondering why you barely spoke during dinner.”
“Perhaps I was enjoying the peace.”
God help him. She’d come downstairs in a nightdress to rescue him from his own demons. A wise woman would have stayed in bed.
She planted her hand on her hip, the material pulling dangerously tight. “I know that’s a lie. You’ve been avoiding me since I opened the cupboard. What happened to the man who couldn’t resist teasing me?”
“I think we teased each other enough on the journey.” Yet every sensible thought ended where her mouth began.
She moved closer, so close he could see the night air had tightened her nipples beneath the thin cotton. “It didn’t seem that way.”
No, he’d wanted her to straddle him while they bounced through every rut in the road. Ignore every rule she lived by. “Trust me. It’s dangerous to tease a drunken man after dark. Go to bed, Miss Vane. Before you catch a chill.”
She folded her arms, blocking his view.
“You’re not drunk. And I’m not leaving until you tell me why you made those scratches on the cupboard door. Is it why you hope the garden grows so wild it swallows the house?”
“Do you have a pistol concealed behind your back? I’d rather take a lead ball than speak of the past.”
He regretted the words as soon as he spoke them.
The jest sounded too much like the truth.
“Then the past is exactly what we should discuss.”
The woman was relentless.
“We should talk about something else.”
“Such as?”
“Why our mouths meet far too often.”
That wasn’t true. It wasn’t often enough.
She closed the gap between them, snatched the bottle from his hand and took a swig. The gasp came first, then the shudder as she swallowed. “You’d rather discuss kissing than answer a simple question?” She searched his face. “Were you sent there often?”
The question hit like a fist to the ribs.
He wanted her to stop asking about the cupboard.
Wanted her to leave.
Wanted her close enough that he could forget it existed.
He shot to his feet and snatched the bottle from her. The brush of her fingers left a burn no liquor could match.
“You shouldn’t drink this.” He set it on the side table. “It might loosen your tongue. Encourage you to ask questions that are none of your concern.”
She flinched as though reeling from a blow.
He waited for her to retreat.
She held her ground.
“You said we were friends. Friends don’t leave each other to fight battles alone.” She looked at him as though he were wounded and she meant to guard the door. “Don’t shut me out now.”
He clasped her arm, pulling her towards him, not pushing her away. “I never asked for this. Not your provoking letters. Not your relentless pursuit of the truth. You, making yourself indispensable.”
“And yet here we are.” Her gaze dropped briefly to his hand on her arm. “You holding me when there’s every reason not to.”
He shifted his grip, his thumb grazing the soft curve of her breast. “Because you still haven’t answered my question about kissing. That’s the real issue here.”
She closed her eyes for a second. He could have sworn she leant into his touch. “I thought you’d finished teasing me. I thought you’d had your fill on the road.”
“That was before you started interrogating me in my own damn library.”
He should release her. Let her go. But she inhaled sharply, and he felt the brush of her breast again.
“It’s not really your library. You’re merely the custodian until a distant relative lays claim. The cupboard is why you won’t marry. Why you’d rather sleep beneath a printing press than sleep here.”
He held her so close her nightgown skimmed his shirt. “I’m not talking about the cupboard or how that bastard treated me. Do you hear?”
He should have kept his damn mouth shut.
Her hands came to rest on the open neck of his shirt. “I hear you. I’m here for you.”
The first stroke of her fingers on his skin shattered what remained of his resolve. She traced the column of his throat as though she intended to learn every inch of him.
He caught her wrist and turned it. “Go to bed. For heaven’s sake, go now. I’m not myself tonight.” Yet he lowered his head and pressed his mouth to the delicate skin.
He should have released her.
Instead, he kissed her wrist again, pushed up the sleeve of her nightgown and followed the line of her arm to the crook of her elbow.
“Hugh.” His name left her in a breathless rush.
He was drowning in the taste and smell of her skin. He needed to hear his name again. Hugh. Not the Boy. Not what this house had made him. “Tell me to stop. Tell me this is a step too far.”
“It’s not far enough.”
“I’m no gentleman. I’ll take every liberty.”
“I’ll not stop you.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Then show me.”
He found himself smiling. A first for this house. “You may regret that invitation. But all you need do is say stop.”
He gripped her chin and claimed her mouth, driven by the need he’d been fighting since her perfumed letters had crossed his desk, pricked his temper, and unsettled every sensible thought in his head.
She tasted of brandy, sugar and sin. He slid his hand to the small of her back, pressing her against him until there was nothing left between them but thin cotton and bad decisions.
The cupboard ceased to exist.
He didn’t care if this was a mistake.
Beneath the heat of her lips, every crippling memory vanished, his focus narrowing to the feel of her breasts against his chest and the sweet hum in her throat.
He was hard. And she was close enough to know it.
He should stop.
He kissed her harder instead, messy and desperate.
This house had taken everything from him. For one night, in the dark, with the storm battering the windows and her hands in his hair, he intended to take something back.
“You should have gone to bed,” he whispered against her ear.
“Why, when everything I want is right here?”
“Tell me what you want,” he said against her throat. “It would be dangerous to make me guess.”
“You. Just you.”
He’d knelt for no one. Yet he sank to his knees before her, in this house of all godforsaken places.
His hands found her ankles first. Warm skin beneath his palms as he slid them slowly upwards, taking the hem of her nightgown with them.
The curve of her calf. The soft hollow behind her knee. He took his time, learning the shape of her by touch alone, his mouth following where his hands led. A kiss to the inside of her knee. Another to the smooth skin above it. Her fingers tightened in his hair.