Again the Magic (23 page)

They entered the long, narrow portrait gallery, where paintings had been hung in six rows up to the ceiling, clearly intended not as a display of art but rather a display of aristocratic heritage. At the far end of the gallery stood a pair of immense gothic thrones. The backs of the chairs were eight feet tall, and the seats were surfaced by cushions that managed to be harder than a wooden plank. To the Marsdens, bodily comfort was of far less importance than the fact that the thrones dated back to the 1500s and represented a lineage far less corrupted by foreign influences than that of the current monarch.

As they walked back and forth along the gallery, the conversation quickly detoured from the subject of ancestry into far more personal channels, and somehow Shaw managed to guide Livia into the subject of her love affair with Amberley. There were countless reasons why Livia should not have confided in him. She ignored them all. Somehow Livia did not want to keep anything hidden from Gideon Shaw, no matter how shocking or unflattering. She even told him about her miscarriage… and as they talked, Livia found herself being pulled to one of the enormous chairs, and suddenly she was sitting on his lap.

“I can’t,” she whispered anxiously, staring at the empty doorway of the gallery. “If someone should catch us like this—”

“I’ll watch the doorway,” Shaw assured her, his arm tightening around her waist. “It’s more comfortable to sit like this, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but—”

“Stop wiggling, darling, or you’re going to embarrass us both. Now… you were telling me…”

Livia went still in his lap, blushing wildly. The endearment, commonplace as it was, and the prolonged contact with his body, and the friendly sympathy in his gaze, made her weak all over. She struggled to remember what they had been talking about. Ah… the miscarriage. “The worst part was that everyone thought I was fortunate to have lost the baby,” she said. “No one said it in those exact words, but it was obvious.”

“I imagine that it wouldn’t have been easy, to be unmarried with a fatherless child,” Shaw said gently.

“Yes. I knew that at the time. But I still grieved. I even felt as if I had failed Amberley, by not managing to keep that last little part of him alive. And now there are even times when I find it difficult to remember exactly what Amberley looked like, or what his voice sounded like.”

“Do you think he would have wanted you to commit suttee?”

“What is that?”

“A Hindu practice in which a widow is expected to throw herself on her husband’s burning funeral pyre. Her suicide is considered as proof of her devotion to him.”

“What if the wife dies first? Does the husband do the same thing?”

Shaw threw her a mildly taunting grin. “No, he re-marries.”

“I should have known,” Livia said. “Men always manage to arrange things for their own benefit.”

He tsked in mock reproof. “You’re too young to be so disillusioned.”

“What about you?”

“I was born disillusioned.”

“No, you weren’t,” she said decisively. “Something made you that way. And you should tell me what it was.”

Subtle amusement flickered in his eyes. “Why should I do that?”

“It’s only fair, after I told you about Amberley and my scandal.”

“It would take the rest of the night to tell you about
my
scandals, my lady.”

“You owe it to me,” she said. “Surely you are too much of a gentleman to renege on a debt to a lady.”

“Oh, I’m quite the gentleman,” Shaw said sardonically. Reaching into his breast pocket, he withdrew the small silver flask. He tucked her deeper into the crook of his arm and brought his hands together to uncap the flask. Livia gasped a little as she was lightly squeezed amid taut bands of muscle. When the task was accomplished, Shaw’s arms relaxed, and he brought the flask to his lips. The smell of expensive liquor drifted to Livia’s nostrils, and she watched him warily.

Shaw let out a measured sigh, welcoming the calming effect of the bourbon. “Very well, Princess Olivia… how do you like your scandal…
au tartare
, or well done?”

“Something in-between, perhaps?”

Shaw smiled and took another pull on the flask. For a long minute they sat together in silence, with Livia piled on his lap in a heap of skirts and stays and confined female flesh. She saw the careful consideration in his eyes as he weighed how much to tell her, which words would most efficiently convey his meaning… and then his mouth quirked with moody resignation, and his shoulders tensed in the bare promise of a shrug. “Before I tell you anything, you have to understand the Shaws’ perception — no, conviction — that no one is quite good enough for them.”

“Which Shaws are you referring to?”

“Most of them — my parents in particular. I have three sisters and two brothers, and believe me, the ones who are married had the very devil of a time getting my father to approve of their prospective spouses. It was infinitely more important to my parents that their offspring should marry people of the right backgrounds, with the appropriate bloodlines and financial endowments, rather than marry someone whom we may have actually liked.”

“Or loved,” Livia said perceptively.

“Yes.” Shaw regarded the worn silver flask and drew his thumb across the warm, scuffed metal. Livia had to avert her gaze from the sight, astonished by the sudden intense wish that his hand was on her body instead. Fortunately Shaw seemed too lost in his thoughts to notice the way she had tensed in his lap. “I am… was… the second oldest son,” he said. “While my brother Frederick struggled beneath the weight of expectation, I became the black sheep of the family. When I reached a marriageable age, the woman I fell in love with was nowhere near the standards that the Shaws had established. Naturally that only made her more attractive.”

Livia listened carefully, her gaze on Shaw’s face as he smiled with self-derision. “I warned her what to expect,” he continued. “I told her they would likely disown me, they would be cruel, they would never approve of someone they had not chosen themselves. But she said that her love for me would never waver. We would always be together. I knew that I would be disinherited, and it didn’t matter. I had found someone who loved me, and for the first time in my life I would have the chance to prove to myself and everyone else that I didn’t need the Shaw fortune. Unfortunately, when I took her to meet my father, the relationship was immediately exposed for the sham that it was.”

“She crumbled beneath your father’s disapproval,” Livia guessed.

Shaw laughed darkly, recapping the flask and replacing it in his coat pocket. “ ‘Crumbled’ is not the word I would use. They struck a deal, the two of them. My father offered her money to simply forget my proposal and go away, and she responded with a counteroffer. The two of them bargained like a pair of bookies in a listmaker’s office, while I stood by and listened, slack-jawed. When they reached an acceptable sum, my beloved left the house without once looking back. Apparently the prospect of marrying a disinherited Shaw wasn’t nearly as attractive as a nice big payoff. For a while I couldn’t decide whom I hated more — her or my father. Not long after, my brother Frederick died unexpectedly, and I became the heir apparent. My father made his disappointment in me clear from then until the day he died.”

Livia was careful not to reveal her sympathy, fearing that he would misread it. A dozen platitudes occurred to her, about how Shaw would certainly find a woman worthy of his love someday, and perhaps his father had only wanted the best for him… but in the stark honesty of the moment, she couldn’t say anything so banal. Instead she sat in silence with him, eventually glancing into his face to find that instead of looking bitter or disillusioned, he was staring at her with a quizzical smile.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“I was just reflecting on how fortunate I am. Even though I only had Amberley for a short time, at least I know that once I was truly loved.”

His fingers touched the edge of her jaw, stroking delicately. The gentle caress made Livia’s heart throb violently. He held her gaze deliberately, his fingertips playing on her skin until he found the tender hollow behind her earlobe. “Anyone would love you.”

Livia could not seem to look away from him. He was a dangerous man, offering sensation in lieu of safety, passion instead of protection. Once she never would have believed that she would consider having an affair with a man whom she didn’t love. But there was something tantalizing about him, a promise of wicked enjoyment, of fun, that she found impossible to resist.

Impulsively she leaned forward and touched her mouth to his. The texture of his lips was smooth and silken, cool at first, then warming rapidly. As before, his kisses were playful, expressive, nipping with gentle curiosity, then pressing with more purposeful intent. After coaxing her lips apart, he settled in for a long, open kiss, his tongue delving in soft exploration.

As Livia squirmed closer to him, she felt the tension of his body, the taut muscle of his chest and abdomen… and lower down, a rising pressure that made her flush in sudden awareness. His hand moved over her back in a lazy circle, influencing her to lean harder against him, until one of her hands encountered the edge of the silver flask. The metal object interfered with her explorations, giving her an unwelcome jolt of reality.

Livia pulled back, smiling and trembling.

“Don’t go yet,” Shaw murmured, feeling the way she tensed in preparation to climb off his lap.

His hand was at her waist, and she reluctantly pushed it away. “I can’t do this with my entire family watching, Mr. Shaw.” She gestured at the rows of solemn-faced ancestors lining the walls.

Shaw responded with a slow smile. “Why not? Don’t they approve of me?”

Livia pretended to consider the question seriously, contemplating the countless austere Marsden faces. “They don’t seem to. Perhaps they should get to know you better.”

“No,” he replied without hesitation. “I don’t improve on closer acquaintance.”

She arched her brows, wondering if the statement had been made out of sincerity, or manipulation, or merely a dark sense of humor. Unable to decide, she shook her head with a reluctant smile. “Actually, the closer you are, the more I like you.”

Instead of replying, Shaw took her small head in both his hands and pulled her close, and crushed a kiss on her mouth. The smacking imprint of his lips was hardly romantic — it was too hard, too fast, though gratifyingly enthusiastic. Yet it affected Livia even more intensely than the languid, soft searching of a few minutes earlier.

Releasing her, Shaw watched as Livia slid from his lap. The floor seemed to slant beneath her feet before she finally regained her balance. Shaw settled back in the throne, staring at her in a way that drew a quiver from deep in her abdomen.

“What are you thinking?” Livia whispered, echoing his earlier question.

He answered with a startling lack of pretense. “I’m wondering how much I can take from you without hurting you.”

It was then that Livia was certain of something: before Gideon Shaw returned to America, she and he were going to be lovers. She saw from the expression in his eyes that he knew it too. The knowledge filled her with a shivery kind of anticipation. Blushing, she backed away from him a step or two, and murmured good night. Turning to walk away from him, she could not resist throwing a glance over her shoulder.

“I’m not afraid of being hurt,” she murmured.

He smiled faintly. “All the same… you’re the last person in the world I want to cause any harm.”

Aline discovered that the door to her room was half open, with golden lamplight spilling invitingly into the hallway. Desperately self-conscious, she went inside and hesitated as she saw Mrs. Faircloth waiting at a chair near the grate. Her usual bath had been placed in the center of the room, with a kettle of scalding water on the hearth.

Naturally Mrs. Faircloth understood everything in one incisive glance.

Aline closed the door, not looking at the housekeeper. “Good evening, Mrs. Faircloth. If you will unfasten the back of my gown, I will manage everything else by myself. I don’t need any help tonight.”

“Yes, you do,” Mrs. Faircloth said, coming to her.

Wry amusement broke through Aline’s misery. There was no possible chance that the housekeeper would ignore this turn of events without having her say. After helping Aline off with her gown, Mrs. Faircloth fetched the kettle from the hearth and warmed the bath with a new infusion of boiling water. “I expect you’re sore,” the housekeeper said. “The hot water will help.”

Turning crimson all over, Aline unhooked her corset and dropped it to the floor. The sudden inrush of oxygen made her dizzy, and she waited until she felt steadier before removing the rest of her clothes. The tight cinch of her garters had left dark red rings around her thighs, and she sighed in relief as she untied them and removed her stockings. Filled with the uncomfortable suspicion that the things that she had done with McKenna were probably visible on her body, Aline hurriedly entered the bath. She sank down into the water with a hiss of comfort.

Mrs. Faircloth went to straighten various articles around the room, while a pair of notches appeared in the space between her silvery brows. “Did he see the scars?” she asked quietly.

Aline let the top of her right knee break through the steaming surface of the water. “No. I managed things so that he didn’t notice them.” She narrowed her eyes against the sudden sting of tears, willing them not to fall. “Oh, Mrs. Faircloth, it was such a mistake. And so appallingly wonderful. Like finding a part of my soul that had been ripped away.” She grimaced in self-mockery at the melodrama of the words.

“I understand,” the housekeeper said.

“You do?”

An unexpected glint of humor appeared in Mrs. Faircloth’s eyes. “I was a young woman once, difficult as that may be to believe.”

“Who did you—”

“It is not something I ever discuss,” the housekeeper said firmly. “And it has no relevance to your predicament with McKenna.”

A more accurate word could not have been chosen. It was not a difficulty, or a problem, or even a dilemma. It was indeed a predicament.