Authors: Elizabeth Essex

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #General

A Sense of Sin (17 page)

BOOK: A Sense of Sin

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Del snatched up the sheets to cover his instantaneous reaction to her presence. “What are you doing here?” Other than staring rather fixedly at his sheets.

She swallowed and then nodded in her solemn way. “I’ve come to you.”

“Come to me? What in God’s name for? What is wrong?” He scrubbed a hand across his face and through his hair to bring himself fully awake. Celia Burke in his bedchamber, in the middle of the night was wrong. Very, very wrong. His mind hammered against his brain to get her out of there, while his body, still warm and relaxed from sleep, had a different scenario in mind.

His question was answered only by silence, and then the faint sound of fabric being arranged. No, disarranged.

“Jesus Christ. Stop.” It was bad enough
he
had no clothes on, but if she thought to put herself in a similar state . . . well it was more than he had bargained for. If he saw so much as a sliver of her soft, white skin—His mouth went dry at the thought. “I beg you, please stop.”

He saw her white throat work as she swallowed. “I want it to end.” Her hands were clenched into fists at her side. “It must end now.” Tension and something worse, desperation, radiated out of her.

He heard her words and thought they were too much like Emily’s.
I just want this pain to stop
.

Fear snaked through him like a lash. He held himself still though his eyes ranged over her. She had no weapon, no gun. A quick scan of the room proved the case atop the chest of drawers was still locked. He spoke quietly, almost gently. “You want what to end, Celia?”

“This. This standoff between us. This challenge, this bet. Your bet.” She met his eyes steadily. “I’ve come to bargain the terms of my surrender.”

His body relaxed enough to allow him to breathe again. “I don’t understand.”

“I am here to put an end to your threats. I will do this with you, I will lie with you, if you will promise me it will be the end of things between us. You can have your triumph. Then it will be over and we will never see or speak to each other again.”

“No. That’s not what I want at all.”

“No? You’ve won. I don’t have the money. I have no hopes of getting the money. But if you will promise, if you will swear on Emily’s grave never to tell a soul, I will lie with you. I will let you ruin me in truth.” Her voice sounded small and bitter. “After all the intimacies we have shared, I hardly think consummation will matter.”

His brain latched fast to her words, knowing they were important, understanding they were vital, but she continued to loosen the neckline of her gown. The material bared a luminous swath of shoulder.

But it couldn’t go on. He couldn’t look at her. It was
not
right. “Who sent you? Who knows you’re here?”

“No one. This is private, between you and me only. I’ll do whatever you say. I’ll give you whatever it is you want. I will trade you my body for the money. As long as you pledge, on your honor, that it will end tonight. I just want it to end.”

She was saying the same thing over and over, but it wasn’t making any sense. She pulled her arms out of the sleeves and pushed the gown down until it lay in a puddle at her feet. With the slightest shrug the translucent chemise would plummet to the floor, along with his chances for survival.

Damn his eyes. Already he could see the vivid pink outline of her nipples, peaked against the soft, sheer fabric of the chemise, beckoning him to taste and touch. Lower, along the slide of her belly, between the flare of her hips, a dark triangle. God help him.

He swallowed hard over the sudden dryness in his mouth, ignored the tightness in his belly, and willed his body to root itself to the bed so he could not move to her. “This isn’t right. You shouldn’t be here.”

“I should. I want this ended.”

It would end only in marriage. Or in tears. There was nothing else.

But what had she said? “What money? You’ll trade your body for money?” Anger and disgust came at him like a slow, deliberate slap across his face. Then rage—black, towering rage, as abrupt and unruly as his arousal—erupted through him. “Have you sunk so low you’ll whore yourself to me?” He threw the words at her, furious she would think so little of herself, and of him.

“If it will make you leave me alone, yes. I can’t pay you any other way. Not even the drawings will bring enough.” Her face was a pale oval of determination in the barely flickering light of the fire.

“Enough?”

“The five hundred pounds. All I can do is trade, but we both get what we want. You get my ruination, which you wanted from the start, and I get your silence.”

Buying silence. It sounded all so bloody damned familiar.
God’s balls.

“Celia,” he asked very carefully, tethering his anger on a very short, tight leash, “are you by any chance being blackmailed?”

“Of course I am!” She all but stamped her foot in frustration. “You know I am.”

“I do now.” The pieces slammed together in his brain, but they fit. God damn it, they fit. What a perfect, sodding mess. He had to get her out of there before the situation got any more complicated. Self-preservation made him look away and snatch up the raw silk banyan at the end of the bed. He whipped it around himself and moved quickly past her, to the window.

“How did you come?” Del pulled back the corner of the drape. The Marquess of Widcombe’s carriage was not in the street. “Did you come alone?”

“I would hardly bring an entourage to an assignation, my lord.” She crossed her arms under her breasts, stubbornly persistent.

“I am
not
your lord and this is
not
an assignation. Does anyone else know? Bains? Your coachman?”

“No, I did not advertise the fact I was planning to come here and offer you my virtue in exchange for my peace.”

“How did you get here?”

“I walked.”

He stopped. “You walked across Mayfair, by yourself at”—he glanced at the clock—“four o’clock in the morning? Are you mad, or do you think I am?” He gestured to the heap of fabric on the floor. “Put on your clothes. I’m taking you home.”

“No.” She shook her head stubbornly, yet he thought he could see a sheen of tears on her over-bright eyes. “No, I’m not going without your word.”

“You have my word. I won’t touch you. I’m taking you home. Put on your clothes. Please.” He stalked over, scooped them up, and thrust them into her hands.

He dove into his dressing room and came up with suitable attire for prowling London’s streets: dark breeches and old boots, linen shirt and a nondescript, baggy, long hunting coat. Nothing he could be seen in, but not being seen was of the essence. And just in case, he emptied the defensive contents of the wooden case on the chest of drawers into his pockets and waistband. Miss Burke may have been lucky on her trip to his door, but he wasn’t the kind of man who relied upon luck.

He waited at the entrance to the dressing room. “Are you clothed?”

“Yes.” It was a small whisper, but full of frustration.

He glanced out to make sure she was suitably covered before he opened the door to the corridor. “Gosling!”

Del picked up the voluminous cloak from the chair and wrapped it around her shoulders before he took her by the arm and steered her as quickly and quietly as possible, down the stairs.

Gosling appeared from the servants’ rooms wearing a robe over his breeches. Celia pulled the cloak over her head and hid her face.

“May I be of any assistance, sir?”

“Yes, you can become deaf, dumb, and blind at this very moment, Gosling, but then I need you to look around and see if anyone followed her here.”

“Done, sir.” The butler’s eyes never strayed towards Celia, remaining steadily on Del’s face. “Will you require an unmarked carriage and a blind coachman, sir?”

“No. It will take too long and the fewer people who have to be struck with temporary blindness the better.”

“Very good, sir.”

“I’ll wait in the kitchen for the all clear.”

Celia glared at Del when he pushed her into a ladder-back chair in the kitchen. If he let himself touch her for too long, if he allowed himself any gentleness, he would be lost.

“How did you get in?”

“The door.” She nodded at the areaway door behind him. “It wasn’t locked.”

“God’s balls. Do you make a habit out of running about London by yourself in the middle of the night? You hardly seem the type.” His anger should have been all for himself and his own carelessness, but all he could think was how small and how bitter she looked, closed off to him. He wanted to reach out and stroke the tangled curl that had fallen across her forehead out of her eye. And brush his fingers against the softness of her skin.

He sat on his hands.

She let out a mirthless wisp of a laugh. “No, I’m not the type, am I? But I did do it. I did climb out the library window and I did come all the way over here. Much good it did me. Here is the sum and total of my daring, at long last.” She sighed.

“So you slid out Widcombe’s library window alone? By yourself?” It was foolish daring, but daring, nonetheless.

“I told you.” Her tone grew frustrated and impatient. “Yes, by myself.”

Gosling came through the passageway. “All clear, sir. Though, I might recommend the back gate.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Del pulled Celia to her feet. “Let’s get you home. Now.”

He never let go of her arm as he hustled her through the darkened back garden, passed through the small mews, and headed down the alley. Dawn was broaching, making the streets less dangerous for them, but it was still deep darkness in the close confines of the alley.

Clever girl, she instinctively stayed close and he took her hand, small and cold, in his. He cut left halfway down the alley.

“No, it’s this way.” She tugged against his grip.

“I know where you live. We’re going my way.” He snagged her by the shoulder of her cloak and hauled her back beside him. He could feel the slight heat and smell the intoxicating scent of her body. They zigzagged their way across Mayfair in the early, blue-gray light of dawn. Every minute brought more light to see her face, to see the harsh circles under her eyes and see the bruised marks upon her lips. He wanted to tuck her up in bed, safe and sound. He wanted to tuck her up beneath him.

For half a moment he let himself picture what it would be like, what he would be doing right then, if he had simply thrown the covers back and taken her into his bed. If he had let her strip off the last barrier of her chemise and let him see the naked glory of her body. If he had her beneath him, pressed into those warm, rumpled sheets.

With his mind so occupied, he did not see them before it was almost too late.

“Well, looka here, mate. What a fine piece o’ luck. Summ’uns a bit lost this fine morning.”

C
HAPTER
17

D
el reeled Celia behind him as figures emerged from the purple mist. Two men, one hulking and the other whip lean, stepped forward from a side alley. He heard Celia’s startled gasp, and felt her hands clutching at his arm and the back of his coat.

“Stay behind me,” he instructed, keeping his eyes on the whippet, the one who had spoken, and letting the heady rush of violence, the need for a fight, sing into his veins. Then he smiled with his teeth, like the mad dog he was at that moment.

“I do believe you will live to regret this, gentlemen.
If
you live.” He pulled the two pistols he’d shoved into his waistband clear and sighted on the leaner, more feral man, who had spoken. He was bound to be the brains of the operation.

The standoff, such as it was, lasted only a few more seconds. Del cocked back the hammers. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Run away. Now!” he roared at them.

They backed away and then turned to clatter down the alley, reabsorbed by the gray mist, disappearing as suddenly and silently as they had appeared.

Del shoved one of the pistols back into his waistband and turned for Celia.

She stepped away from him, stumbling on the back of her gown. Going down into a crouch, she held her hands out in front of her. Her eyes were huge in her face. She looked at him as if she’d only just come to realize he was truly dangerous. “I-I didn’t know you had guns,” she stammered.

“That’s the whole point of having them. Come on.” He pulled her up by the hand. “You don’t belong in this alley.”

“I wouldn’t be in this alley if you hadn’t led me here,” she muttered through her teeth. Shock was wearing holes in her fright.

He kept her to his left and held the gun with his right, more careful of the turnings and cross alleys. They cut down Adams Mews, still locked up tight, its aristocratic patrons in their beds for the night, then dashed across Charles Street and into Bishop’s Yard, behind Grosvenor Street. At the back of the yard, he stowed the second gun in the pocket of his big coat and jumped the brick wall, putting a hand down to hoist her up after him. She was strong and nimble enough to climb over easily. All that clambering about on hillsides and in streams, no doubt.

A line of shops and houses fronted Mount Row and the mews at the back of Grosvenor Street. Another fifty feet and they hauled up to the stable gate of Widcombe House.

It was a mercy the small gate set in the large stable door was unlocked. The coachmen must have stepped out for a pint or two.

Once he had her safely inside, Celia let go of his hand and leaned against the wall of the pass-through corridor to catch her breath. Del felt his own lungs expand with relief. At least if they were found on her uncle’s property, it would be only a private scandal.
That
he could deal with.

“All right now? Come, I’ll see you in.”

“No.” She straightened up and tried to draw herself together. “Are you planning on going back the same way, or shall I lead you out the front?’

“I’ll see you in first. Then the front.” He indicated the way forward with a toss of his head. The early summer light had begun to chase away the mist, though the garden was bathed in dim, flat white light. It was still quiet as they made their cautious way along the small walkway between the houses and came to a stop beneath the open library window.

“Lock it, once you’re in.”

“Yes. The gate’s just there. There’s a latch on this side.” She stopped and indicated a wrought iron portal a few feet ahead.

“Right.” He took a step towards the gate. He should have kept going through the gate, but he didn’t. With all the blood-lust, the suppressed violence and hunger, the need, and God, the intoxicating smell of her roaring through his veins, he turned back to her, crowded her hard to the brick side of the house, and kissed her dead on the mouth.

The breath whooshed out of her lungs as her back hit the wall and his lips covered hers. He didn’t touch her anywhere else. His hands were fisted into balls on either side of her head against the brick. He pressed his mouth to her lips. If it were the last time, if she really thought she wanted it ended between them, then he was going to take what he wanted and give her a taste of what she would always miss.

Her mouth was soft and cool, like a raindrop. Soft and liquid and open. He dove past her lips into the warmth, devouring her, falling, falling into her bliss. It was beyond a mere kiss. It was an exploration of her. He inhaled deeply, taking her essence deep into his lungs like a drug. He smelled lemons, in her hair and on her hands that came up to fist in his lapels. And something else, something deeper, exotic and homey at the same time. Something ravishing. He wanted to ravish
her
. He wanted to put his big hands along the slide of her slender neck, run them down her arms, and span her neat little waist.

He was falling. Her mouth was light and air, and she made a soft little moan of surrender before she began kissing him back, tentatively at first, then with more assurance. He knew if he put his hands on her he would not stop. He would not stop until he had her skirts above her waist and was buried to the hilt in her soft, slick warmth, fucking her for all he was worth.

Against the wall of the Marquess of Widcombe’s town house. Out of which, she had snuck in the middle of the night. Out of which, at any moment, her angry uncle, the Marquess, or God forbid, her gorgon of a mother, might come storming after her wayward daughter.

He didn’t want to find himself trapped into marriage with this enchanting woman, this strange closet botanist. He wanted her to bloody well
choose
him. The way he had chosen her.

Del forced himself to tear his lips away, to break off the kiss, but he was the one propping his arms against the wall, panting, his chest pumping like a bellows, his breath ruffling the loose hair that had fallen across her cheek.

And she wasn’t unaffected. Her eyes were huge and shining in her face. One hand had risen up to cover her mouth, to touch those kiss-roughened lips.

“Well then, Miss Burke. Just so you know what you’ll be missing.” With that he took himself through the gate and back out into the night. With any luck he’d find that pair of footpads and get into a fight vicious enough to bruise the feeling of loss out of him.

When Celia saw the letter nested on the silver tray she felt no alarm. Well, perhaps a small bit of alarm, but she seemed to have become adjusted to the bolts of shock. Viscount Darling may not have been happy with her—he had been furious—but he was not unmoved. It was an interesting, but cautious, thought. So she was not at all prepared for the contents of the letter. Really, the damned paper
ought
to have been black.

Have a care for your reputation, Miss Burke, or there will be no saving it. Your name will be blackened all over town were it known to even a few in society you have been making clandestine assignations with a certain Vile Viscount. You try our patience, Miss Burke. The ton finds nothing half so entertaining as a downfall. The sum of one thousand pounds is now the figure that will buy your freedom. Tuesday next, Powell’s, George Alley.

Celia stared at the missive for a long moment and felt . . . nothing. No roiling in her belly. No icy clamminess in her palms. No feeling of cold goosebumps as if someone had walked over her grave. She felt curiously, strangely devoid of any emotion.

Perhaps it was from the growing regularity, the monotony of the event. How many blackmail notes could a girl get and still manufacture the same care? But most likely, the relief and pleasure she felt in
finally
knowing, beyond any sort of doubt, Viscount Darling was unequivocally
not
her blackmailer, had cancelled out all the anxiety she surely ought to have felt. Extraordinary.

Whatever the reason for her lack of desperation, she was glad of it. It left her free to think logically. Celia read the note again. Well, now,
they
—it was strange how quickly she had gone from
him
to
they
—they had done it. They had specifically mentioned her meeting with Viscount Darling, either in the wee hours of the night or at the Royal Society. They were now threatening not one, but two people she cared about—two Delacortes. She put the letter in her pocket.

She had a clear moral obligation to inform Viscount Darling of his involvement in the event. And she would bet five hundred pounds, that unlike her, with all his experience of the world, all his military prowess, and all his dangerous affinities, he would know exactly what to do.

There was also the rather important matter of the very large apology she owed him. For her clandestine appearance in his bedchamber—and for thinking he was her blackmailer in the first place. For ever doubting he was the man in Emily’s letters she had first fallen in love with.

She wrote a note begging him to meet her immediately, on urgent business. She then dragged Bains out for a walk, ostensibly for a promenade around Grosvenor Square, but really to the corner of Oxford Road, where she found a crossing sweep eager to take her pennies in exchange for delivering a message to Number Twenty-four North Row, five blocks away. The sweep was back in less than five minutes with the answer.

Viscount Darling had written on a piece of paper a single word.
No.

“No?” Celia wanted to stamp her foot on the sidewalk. “Well, that just tears it. Come along, Bains.”

“Where are you—Oh no, miss,” Bains called after her. “No means no.”

“I find, my dear Bains, I am no longer willing to accept no for an answer. From anyone. Certainly not from Viscount Darling. It is for his own good.”

And entirely necessary to her peace of mind. She simply had to see him. Despite her limited experience of physical intimacy, Celia was quite sure Viscount Darling had not kissed her like
that
—as if he were going to explode if he didn’t put his lips upon hers—only to reject her. She felt a rush of heat as she relived the incendiary kiss again. She could still taste the salt of his skin, feel the roughness of his whiskers abrading her cheeks, and taste the dark spice of his mouth on hers. His was a kiss well worth fighting for.

Celia marched herself right up his front steps and banged the knocker down hard. The door was answered immediately by Gosling, who looked at her with incredulous alarm when Viscount Darling came into the corridor.

“God’s balls. I just got you—” Del whipped out his arm and yanked her inside, leaving Bains to scurry in behind her. “What are you thinking, coming here in the middle of the morning? I told you
no
. No means no.”

The damn fool girl’s maid muttered, “ ’Swhat I said.”

They were still standing in his entry hall. He didn’t dare invite her into his drawing room. He didn’t want her staying that long.

She held out the note crushed in her fist. “You can’t send me a note like this and expect me to do nothing. I had to see you. It’s important.”

“God’s balls, Celia.
You
sent
me
the note, if you’ll recall. Which I answered, refusing to meet with you in a compromising manner. If you had just waited, I would have been able to sort out something more suitable than this.” He pushed the door closed behind her. “You can’t be seen here, for God’s sake. I realize you are purposefully trying to be ruined, but I’m beginning to believe I’m not the man for the job after all.”

“It’s too late for that!”

“So I see.” She was becoming a tenacious, persistent little thing. She looked marvelous, all flushed with indignation, pink-cheeked and vibrant. But there were still those damned dark smudges under her eyes.

Del stomped down the hall to his office. She followed reluctantly, as if her bravado had only carried her so far and was faltering at a deeper incursion into his lair. It hadn’t gone so well last time, had it? But she followed him anyway. Leaving the door open behind him he moved to put his desk between them.

“Now”—he focused on the letter she still clutched in her hand—“what is this all about?”

“I received another letter. A blackmail letter, only it was
about you
!” She pulled it from her pocket and thrust the paper at him.

He pulled it out of her grasp and scanned the contents. It was strikingly all too familiar. The cold of deep abiding anger tunneled through him. Pernicious bastards. But something was thawing the cold. Satisfaction. He knew, without a doubt, he was going to catch them. They’d given a different address. “You said ‘another.’ ”

“Yes. But I thought you sent the two others.”

Everything began to slowly fall into place, like the tumblers falling in a lock. All that time, they’d been playing against each other, instead of against the real blackmailer.

“I can tell you, without a shadow of a doubt, my dear Miss Burke, I did not write this, nor did I write the two others.” He took his paper out of his drawer and held it out to her.

“Oh, my God in heaven. It’s nearly the same.”

“Yes, but you’ll note, I hope, that it is addressed to me.”

She turned the letter over and stared.

BOOK: A Sense of Sin

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