A Breath of Scandal: The Reckless Brides (37 page)

They put both Velocity and the shivering, terrified stable boy under the capable and kindly authority of Broad Ham, and once that small portion of her worries was taken care of, Antigone began to feel the creeping exhaustion set in.

But she couldn’t give way to it. Not yet. There was still too much that had to be done. And frankly, she hadn’t anyplace else to go. She had left Dover Street without a backward glance. What her mother and sister had made, or said of her disappearance, she could not imagine, but she no longer cared for her mother’s opinion in the least. But Cassandra was another matter. Antigone would not abandon her.

“Viscount Jeffrey?” The brothers had their heads together, conferring quietly—about the money, she hoped. “Before you retire, I wondered if I might have a word?”

They looked at her, Viscount Jeffrey and his brother, her Will, as if they were deeply suspicious and afraid of what else she might ask of them this evening. She was sure she would surprise them.

“Do you love my sister?” she asked him.

They still stood there gawping at her as if she had run mad, but she had to be sure. She had to know that what she had done would begin and end with herself, and not change Cassie’s fate.

“Miss Antigone.” Viscount Jeffrey frowned at her, and spoke carefully, as if he were afraid she would not understand. “This is hardly the time and place—” He spread his hands and gestured around them—to the stables still full of people taking the team out of harness and pushing the empty carriage back into its bay for the night.

She stood firm. “Do you love her?” she repeated.

For all that he was clearly uncomfortable being questioned about his private affairs in the middle of a stable, in the middle of the night, once Viscount Jeffrey made up his mind to answer, he did not hesitate. “Yes.”

“Do you promise me to take care of her? Now and always?”

“I don’t understand what—” He ran a hand through his hair in perfect imitation of his brother’s gesture of addled frustration.

“Do you promise me? Do you promise me that you consider yourself bound to her, and that you will take care of her, and stand by her, and do everything in your power to make her happy?”

“Miss Antigone, such questions are best answered in a church, in front of God and his duly appointed and ordained representative. Which I have every intention of doing—”

“Swear it now,” she insisted. “In front of me, and Thomas and Will, and Broad Ham, and God, for that matter.”

He took a deep breath. “I swear it.”

“Thank you.” She felt the last of her stiff resolve run out of her, leaving her strangely numb. Suspended between what had been and what was still to come. What she needed to make happen. “Now if you would be so good, I do need my five hundred pounds.”

Thomas looked at James, and James looked at Will.

It was Will who answered her. “Why don’t we step inside the house, and then we’ll see where five hundred pounds are to be found at two o’clock of a morning.”

She had no choice but to agree—to quietly thank Broad Ham for his assistance, and follow the Jellicoe brothers across the dark garden and into the house. Once they had reached the wide black-and-white marbled central corridor, Thomas paused to light the carrying candlesticks laid out there.

“I think perhaps you ought to remain here as our guest, Miss Antigone,” James suggested. “It’s grown late.”

“It is only a few hours until dawn anyway.” Will added his argument to his brother’s. “Perhaps it were best if you spent what little remains of the night here. Thomas can do his duty by you and his new mare in the morning.”

“No. I thank you for your kindness but it is impossible.” She pulled the affidavit from the Earl Grosvenor’s secretary out of her coat. “Here is my proof of ownership should Aldridge threaten to make trouble for you.”

“We’ll leave Aldridge to our father, Miss Antigone.” Viscount Jeffrey spoke again. “But I must insist you stay. As your future brother-in-law. Will can ring for the housekeeper—”

“I thank you, but I must go.”

“Where?”

Antigone turned back to Will, but she didn’t answer him. Because she didn’t know the answer yet herself. She had acted on impulse, relying on instinct without any thought for what came next.

But he didn’t argue, or question her further. He just nodded and said, “I’ll see to your money, Pres.” As if it were the easiest thing in the world to find five hundred pounds in ready money at two o’clock in the morning. As if he had such an enormous sum lying about, with which to dispense or amuse himself every night.

Master Thomas was not so easy. “It is my mare and my debt. I don’t like the idea of Will—”

“Thomas.” Viscount Jeffrey silenced him. “We’ll sort it out amongst ourselves in the morning.” The finality in the viscount’s tone was all the explanation the poor boy would get, because his brother put his hand on the back of Thomas’s neck and propelled him up the staircase. “Good night, Miss Antigone. Thank you for a most eventful evening. What an interesting way to celebrate my engagement.” And with one last, brotherly smile, James took Thomas away, and they were gone.

Leaving her alone with Will Jellicoe.

Right where they had left off last time they had been alone together.

It was not an auspicious thought. But Will didn’t seem to be thinking the same pessimistic way she was. He picked up a candle branch in one hand, and took her by the hand with the other to lead her down another marbled corridor, and into a library. “Here.”

He set the candle branch on the large, double-sided desk, and opened a cabinet in a strange echo of their first, rather prophetic meeting. “Cognac,” he said, though she needed no explanation. “I think we can both use a splash, and at least here I know where the superior stuff is to be found.”

“Thank you.” She accepted both the glass, and her fate that she would spend what was left of the night there. She could sleep in a library chair just as comfortably, or perhaps more so, than on a bale of straw in the stable. She was about to give in to her mounting weariness and collapse into the wing chair next to the banked fire, but he stopped her.

“Don’t sit. You look past exhaustion, and experience has taught me that once one sits, one won’t get back up, so let’s keep you moving.” He pulled her up and held on to her hand as he led her back the way they had come, until they came to the wide stairway above which Thomas and James had disappeared. “Here,” Will said again, and handed her his drink, which she took. Whereupon he put his now free hand into the curve at the small of her back, and propelled her upward.

“Where are we going?”

“To get the money. And then to bed.” The hand that warmed the small of her back did not permit any hesitation.

“Yes, all right. But—”

“No buts.”

He said nothing else as they went up another flight of stairs and into a spacious corner chamber that looked out over the dark parkland in front of the house.

A low fire still burned in the grate, and to one side of the room sat an enormous traveling chest. A sea chest. Will’s sea chest. “Whose chamber is this?” she asked, though she was sure she already knew the answer. What she didn’t know, was how she felt about the answer.

“Mine.”

But his manner was so matter-of-fact, and she was so tired, that she said nothing more, and only watched as he went to the chest and rummaged through its contents.

“Here you are.” He handed her a heavy bag full of coin. “Five hundred guineas.”

“But I sold the mare to Thomas, not to you—”

“And I’ll get it from him, don’t you worry. But I rather thought you wouldn’t be able to rest if you didn’t have the money. You seemed to go to rather a lot of trouble for it tonight.”

“Yes. Thank you,” was all she said. It hurt too much to think about what she was doing, and why she was doing it—because her own mother had sold her to such a man as Aldridge like an animal for no reason but her own greed and anxiety. It was a betrayal of such enormity, and she was so tired of trying to understand and justify such an abandonment. So tired of throwing her plates into the air. Her mind was numb and dumb from the constant barrage of strain and worry.

The heavy sack of gold coin weighed her down so much that she again wanted nothing but to cross to the armchair in front of the hearth, and collapse into its cushions.

“No,” Will instructed before she could accomplish her goal. “You take the bed. I’ll sleep in the chair. Let me help you with your boots.”

It was almost comical, the image he presented, kneeling down in front of her to play valet, she felt herself smile. And she was, quite literally, too tired to argue. And he was such a handsome valet. “By all means. You get mine and then I’ll get yours.”

She extended her boot to him, but the deeply gratifying feel of his hands on her legs, cupping her heel to pull off the boot, and then running his hand up her stockinged calf to the sensitive hollow at the back of her knee, made her weak and strong all at the same time. She made a sound of such lazy satisfaction, that Will finally looked at her and smiled.

“I can see my nefarious plan to soften you up is working, so you might be more willing to confide in me the reason you’re strung as tight as a halyard. And the reason you need five hundred—”

She cut off his words with her mouth upon his.

She gripped the lapels of his damp, rain-soaked coat and levered herself against him, angling her mouth to his, offering him her body, her self, her very soul. She would not just passively wait for him to accept her offer. She would not let this opportunity slip from her grasp.

Softly at first, she moved her mouth across his, feeling her way to him across the impasse of their last encounter. Using his brief kisses as stepping stones on her way. She kissed him gently, pressing her lips against his lightly, shifting to place little busses along the rough line of his jaw, until her mouth seemed to want to move of its own volition, until she was opening her mouth and delving in to taste him. And then her hands were no longer on his coat, but around his neck and in his hair, holding him still and near, so she could kiss him as she pleased, as she had always wanted to do.

“I don’t want to be alone tonight, Will,” she whispered with all the painful longing she had bottled up inside. “I don’t want to sleep in a bed while you sleep in a chair. Please. I know what I’m asking of you. I know the sacrifice I’m asking of your honor. But please, please don’t turn me away. Please let me be with you. Please.”

If she could have tonight, if she could have just one chance to be with him, then she felt she could bear whatever hardships, whatever indignity or discomfort or loneliness, might come her way.

“Now.” She pressed kisses to the sensitive slide of skin beneath his ear. “Right away. Please, I beg you. I love you, Will Jellicoe, and I want to be with you. I need to be with you. Please, if you care for me, if you love me even a little, then you’ll do this for me.”

“Pres…” He shook his head as if he would gainsay her.

“Please, Will.”

He looked at her for a long time, it seemed, his eyes dark and unfathomable, roaming over her face. And then his hand came up to follow the path of his gaze and he caressed her, carefully outlining each and every curve and plane of her face brushing his fingers lightly over her lashes, skimming along the outline of her lips.

“Please.” She pressed her mouth into the hollow of his throat where his pulse beat strong and steady beneath her lips.

In answer, he cupped her face with his hands, drew her toward him and kissed her. A sweet, gentle kiss that filled her with bittersweet hope.

She felt the moment when his will weakened, the moment when his resistance gave way and he began to kiss her back, kiss her in earnest. His arms tightened, his hands gripped her arms and drew her hard against his chest.

Will delved into her mouth, and let his hands roam over her back, until they came up to rake through her hair, cradling her jaw, and holding her still for a blistering kiss.

“Yes,” she gasped. Heat began to pulse through her veins, warming her enough to drive out the cold dread that had been knotted in her chest all evening. She abandoned herself to the warm pleasure, losing herself in the blessedly forgetful force of each new sensation, until he finally broke away from the kiss, gasping for air just as she was.

He looked down at her for another long moment, while his chest rose and fell, heaving with the effort to draw a collected breath. When his hand came back up to stroke her cheek and cradle her jaw, Antigone placed her hands over his and tipped her head, leaning her cheeks into his hand. She rested there, safe in his arms for a blissful moment, until he stepped away.

“Come,” he said simply, holding out his hand.

He led her the six steps to his bed, but the distance was as great a divide as any she had ever crossed.

His golden face looked solemn in the glow from the fireplace embers. “Pres, I cannot do this lightly. I couldn’t do this—I mean, I could, I can,” he said a little sheepishly, giving her a bit of his lopsided smile. “But what I mean—”

“Shh. I love you, Will,” she whispered. “You are the best, truest friend I have ever had and I have never loved anyone the way I do you.”

He reached out to brush away the hair that had fallen over her eyes, and tuck it behind her ear. He took her into his arms carefully, reverently, as if she were fragile and would break. He cupped her face with his hands, tenderly caressing her cheeks with his thumbs.

“Sweet, appalling girl.” He touched feather-light kisses upon her tender cheeks, pressed infinitely light busses upon her lips. His mouth came down and gently covered hers. “You will tell me if I hurt you. I mean, at some point … You do know it will hurt some, when…?”

In answer she pressed her lips to his. He tasted of brandy and warmth and strength. She gave herself up to the kiss, using her lips and tongue, and the force of her love to convince him, to entice him to madness. She felt mad, consumed by the need to become one with him, body and soul. She needed to be near him, be with him now.

She stepped back to unbutton the redingote, and although her fingers shook, she loosened the garment and shrugged it off her shoulders before she went at the buttons of her waistcoat. She wanted to be naked, with nothing between them, bare of all traces of cloth and restraint.