Between the Devil and Ian Eversea (18 page)

She regarded him guilelessly.

Or what she hoped was guilelessly.

“But doesn’t life change you, too?” she asked. “Rather inevitably? One can hardly predict what will happen, isn’t that right?”

The duke hesitated, then slowly nodded in concession, raising a brow.

“But I think sometimes it’s like setting a broken arm,” he said. “If it isn’t done quite right, by someone very skillful and knowledgeable, it fuses in a particular shape and can never be quite right again.”

Tansy fought to keep from narrowing her eyes. She suspected she was being warned in some fashion. Again. About Ian Eversea.

“Sometimes things are broken in such a way to fit with other things, are they not? Like the pieces of a puzzle or of stained glass?”

The duke drummed his fingers on the desk. A silence drifted by, and it lasted so long that the chink of a melting sugar cube against the side of a teacup was startlingly loud.

“You certainly are your father’s daughter,” he finally said.

G
ENEVIEVE WAS ALREADY
in bed, reading, her hair roped into a dark braid, when he slid in and wordlessly reached for her.

She abandoned her book and went willingly, sighed while nestling into his chest as he burrowed his face into her hair. They lay in silence for a time, humbled by how fortunate they were, humbled by the miracle of loving and being loved and by how vigorous lovemaking really seemed never to lose its novelty.

“I’ve heard from the Duke de Neauville,” he said. “His heir is arriving in Sussex to visit.”

“Ah. I imagine you’d like to introduce him to Miss Danforth.”

“How restful to know that I need never speak again, since you read my mind so perfectly.”

She laughed.

He loved the feel of her laugh vibrating against his chest.

“Miss Danforth’s brother was a soldier. Decorated. Lost in the war. Bayonet got him, I recall.”

“Ah,” Genevieve said softly. “Poor Tansy. Ian was decorated, too. For valor, I believe. He’d saved a life. He has quite a terrible bayonet scar.”

“I’ve seen it,” the duke said simply.

The two of them were silent at that, because Genevieve knew full well when the duke had seen it.

She nestled a little closer into her husband. Both because she knew he didn’t like to remember that, and because she was grateful that whatever happened had ultimately brought the duke to her.

“Is he really leaving on a long sea voyage?” he asked.

“Ian?” Genevieve said sleepily. “Sometimes I feel like he’s already on it. But yes. He is.”

“Good,” the duke said.

Chapter 18

A
STEAMING BATH HAD CHEERED
Ian immensely after a long, long day of physical labor, and Ned had to nearly push him out of the door of the Pig & Thistle, but he was sober enough by the time he arrived home.

He paused in the middle of his room. The bath, the pleasure of it, had made him unduly aware of his skin and his body and his muscles and his senses, and what a glorious pleasure it was to possess them. To be alive. To be able to feel and taste and . . .

And now his muscles tensed again. He slowly flattened a hand against his still warm, damp chest.

How . . . new . . . her hand had felt against his skin, the tentative unfurling of her fingers, that discovery of him, brave and reckless and innocent and yet somehow not.

She didn’t kiss like a virgin. She kissed like she was born to do only that, with only him.

He wanted to touch her again.

He wanted to feel his skin against hers again.

He wanted to taste her. Everywhere.

And the need he’d been holding at quite sensible bay for over a week rushed over him like a bonfire.

He’d avoided his window for a week. He would not go to it now. He would not.

He told himself this all the way to the window.

When he got there, he peered out. A wedge of light emerged from her windows. His heart gave a lurch. For there she was, out on the balcony, doing . . .

What in God’s name
was
she doing?

She was leaning far out over the balcony edge, one leg out behind her, and her arms had begun windmilling. His heart shot into his throat until she seemed to find a certain balance. Still, she remained in a precarious position.

Ian bolted from his room and flung open her chamber door, which mercifully wasn’t locked, and was out on the balcony in a few steps.

He managed to keep his voice calm. “What the bloody hell are you doing? Everyone was speaking euphemistically when they refer to you as an angel. You haven’t any wings, Miss Danforth. You’ll hit the ground with a thud when you fall. And you will fall, if you maintain that angle.”

She froze. There was a heartbeat of silence before she spoke.

“Oh, good evening, Ian. Aren’t you funny.”

“Step back from the balcony, Miss Danforth. I’m not worth jumping over, believe me.”

“Ha. Believe it or not, I don’t spend every waking minute thinking about you.”

“Just most of them?”

She merely slowly, gracefully, straightened again, stepped back from the edge of the balcony, turned and looked up at him. It wasn’t with reproach, necessarily, but she didn’t say a word.

And suddenly he didn’t think that was very funny, either.

“Then we’re back to my original question—what the bloody hell are you doing?” He lowered his voice.

She hesitated. Her lips worried over each other.

And then she heaved a defeated sigh.

“It’s just . . . well, I can’t find the stars I need.” She sounded abashed.

“The . . . stars you need? Are you an astrologer? Is that why you can read into my soul? Or perhaps you intend to use them to navigate a ship all the way back to America?”

“No, and I know you’d pine yourself right into the grave if I did navigate all the way back to America. I’m looking for the Seven Sisters. Or whatever it is you might call them in this country.”

He was already smiling, damn the girl, and it was suddenly very clear to him, alarmingly clear, that her presence made everything better, colors brighter, the air more effervescent, and her absence over the last week had muted his experience of life altogether. It was like breathing air again after being trapped in a box.

Very, very alarming.

“Ah. The Pleiades. You can just see them from this side of the house if you crane your head . . . so. No need to risk life and limb by leaning over the balcony. See that very bright star there?”

“Where?” She leaned backward, far enough that her shoulder blades brushed his chest.

He suspected it was calculated.

He ought to move away.

He really, really ought to move.

He didn’t move away.

“Oh! I see it! I see them! Or part of them.” She sounded so delighted and relieved, he gave a short laugh.

She startled Ian by settling back against him as if it where the most natural thing in the world and stared up at the sky. And the thing was, it felt natural. In his weary state, the faint lavender sweetness and soft warmth of her made him dizzy. And he suddenly thought he might know what it would be like to be a planet, endlessly, gracefully spinning through the solar system. He couldn’t, for a moment, think of why he hadn’t held her just like this before.

“Why the Seven Sisters?” his voice had emerged somewhat huskily.

Hers was soft, too, when she replied. “My mother used to tell me a story about how they got up in the sky when I was a little girl. I loved it. It changed a bit, each telling.” She gave a soft laugh. “That’s why I liked it so much. She used to say to look for her in the sky when she was . . . gone. She said she’d be at a tea party with the Seven Sisters. And I guess I never thought she . . .” She hesitated. “. . . well, do you know how gone ‘gone’ is, Ian?”

He was struck dumb by the hollowness in her voice. He knew that sound. It came from the absence of someone you loved.

And oddly, he knew exactly what she meant. All the talk of living forever in Heaven wouldn’t change the fact of
gone
.

“I do know,” he said gently. “It’s as though . . . death is merely a sort of theory, until it takes someone you know. Let alone someone you love. I was a soldier. ‘Gone’ was my daily way of life there, for a time. One never, never really gets used to it.”

He’d never said anything of the sort to anyone else before.

“My brother was a soldier,” Tansy confided. “And he died in the War of 1812. Bayonet got him.”

Gone. Everything she’d been a part of was gone. And the enormity of that left him speechless. There really were no words to describe it. The simple ones would have to do.

“I’m sorry.”

She knew he meant them. It was in his voice.

They didn’t speak for a time. She leaned gently against him, and he allowed it, and silently they thought about “gone” and each other.

“My sister Olivia,” he began, “she won’t say anything about it, truly, but I believe—we all believe—she was in love with Lyon Redmond. He’s heir to the Redmond family, and Mr. Miles Redmond’s brother. And he disappeared a few years ago. I don’t know what’s worse. Knowing for certain whether someone is gone forever, or always wondering what became of them.”

He felt her go still as she took this information in thoughtfully.

And then she sighed and moved a little away from him, just shy but not quite of touching him, as if she’d only just realized she was leaning into him for comfort, and was uncertain of her welcome.

His regret was a little too powerful.

Which was when he realized he’d been taking comfort in her, too.

“Forever,” she drawled disdainfully, softly. “I hate the word ‘forever.’ It’s hard to really imagine the concept isn’t it? And then you
know
. When someone is gone forever, you finally understand what it means.”

“I don’t much care for the word, either. Especially with regards to matrimony, and staying in one place, and the like.”

She laughed at that and turned around, and . . .

She might as well have aimed a weapon at him.

Her night rail would have been demure if it didn’t drape the gorgeous lines of her so lovingly, so nearly tauntingly. The bands of muscles across his stomach tensed in an effort to withstand the impact of the sight. Her hair was plaited in a large, messy, golden rope slung over her shoulder and pouring down the front of her.

And an absurdly large, girlish bow closed the neckline.

He couldn’t help but smile at that.

“Why are you grinning?” She sounded irritable.

“You look like a gift, tied up with a bow.”

“Like the gifts you give to your mistresses?”

“Like the
what
?”

“Shhhh! Lower your voice!” She was clearly delighted, stifling a laugh. She’d achieved precisely the effect she’d wanted.

“I haven’t ‘mistresses,’ for God’s sake. There aren’t a
host
of them. And I certainly don’t buy them gifts.”

“All those experienced women wearing experienced expressions. What do you call them?”

“There aren’t ‘all those’
. . .
It’s not as though I . . . You make it sound as though I’ve a harem.”

The woman was maddening. It was like jousting with a weathervane. And what in God’s name
had
she heard about him?

Clearly, enough that was close to the truth. Or she was an excellent guesser?

“Poor women, who never get gifts,” she mourned wickedly.

“Tansy . . .” he warned.

“It might be interesting to be part of a harem,” she said wistfully, softly. “Never knowing whether one might get a visit from the maharajah . . . the anticipation . . . it would be . . .”

He held his breath, waiting on absurd tenterhooks for what she thought it might be.

“. . . delicious,” she finally said thoughtfully.

Oh, God. Oh God Oh God.
She was going to be the death of him.

He couldn’t speak for a time. They were teetering on a precipice here more dangerous than her balcony arabesque of a moment ago.

“What if . . .” His voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat. “What if the maharajah never comes?” His voice was hoarse.

“With all those wives? I’m certain he comes often.”

He stared at her. Had she
really
said that? Did she know what it
meant
?

He gave a short astonished laugh.

“Shhhhh!”
she said again.

“You would
hate
being part of a harem, Tansy. All those other women competing for a bit of attention.
Just
imagine.”

“But it wouldn’t be lonely.”

The words startled him into momentary speechlessness. And he remembered what Mrs. deWitt had said.

How was it he hadn’t realized before that she might be lonely? She was so
effervescent
; she could attract company the way a bloom attracted bees.

But he supposed it wasn’t the same as belonging to someone. Or to somewhere.

But she
was
alone. He felt utterly chagrined that he was only now realizing it. He’d been quite an ass, in many ways.

Then again, she wasn’t entirely without fault in the matter. Captivating all the men in the town was one way to ensure that the women wouldn’t thrill to your company.

“And I would be the favorite wife in no time,” she hastened to add, before he could think about it any longer.

“If the maharajah didn’t kill you first. I hear they use scimitars when their wives irritate them.” He drew a finger across his throat.

She laughed at that. The throaty, delighted sound landed on his heightened, roused senses like fingernails gently dragged down his back.

And that’s when he knew: he’d waited too long. He’d somehow missed the moment when he could have, and really should have, made a sensible retreat. The night rail, the night, the girl, the lavender, the laugh—he was now in thrall to his senses.
Everything
served to titillate them. He was theirs to command. And anything that happened next was a foregone conclusion.

And something would happen. Oh, something would.

“Do you know something, Tansy?” he said softly.

“Mmmm?” She’d been watching his face in the dark, as if she were searching for a particular constellation there, too.

“It’s always been deucedly difficult for me to resist unwrapping gifts.”

Her breath hitched in surprise.

She wasn’t the only one who could be a devil.

Anticipation. It was the whetstone against which desire was honed. No one knew this better than he did.

The earth turned, the stars twinkled, the shadows swayed, as he waited to hear what she would say, which in the moment seemed the most important words he’d ever hear in his life.

“Is that so?” She’d tried for “casual”; instead she sounded breathless.

“It is, indeed,” he said softly, as solemnly as a judge.

Anticipation could be delicious. It could also be torture. Often the two were one and the same.

He simply waited, and allowed her to anticipate.

He couldn’t quite read her eyes in the dark, which he liked, too, because risk was part of the thrill. The risk of defeat. Was she deciding whether to flee?

Perhaps
he
should take this opportunity to flee.

It was silent, apart from the sound of her breathing, growing ever swifter.

And when he could have plucked the tension between them like a harp string, he watched, as if in a dream, his hand, so very, very inadvisably, slowly reach across the foot or so of safe distance between them and grasp the end of the ribbon.

That catch in her breath was one of the most carnal sounds he’d ever heard.

And then, tormenting the two of them, he pulled the satin through his fingers and watched the bow unravel very, very slowly.