Heart of Brass (31 page)

“Did you take some of Evelyn’s pain medicine?” she asked, openly admiring the muscles of his abdomen and upper chest.

He shook his head. “No. Makes my head feel like it’s stuffed with cotton. You?”

“No. I was just going to crawl into bed.” She hesitated. “Would you care to join me?”

“Yes.” He walked around to the other side of the bed and removed his trousers. He slipped between the sheets in his small clothes, the thin linen low on his hips.

Arden didn’t have any hopes of intimacy as they slid between the sheets, both of them groaning as their battered bodies protested every moment. He pulled her into the warmth of his arms and didn’t say a word. Neither of them spoke at all. Their lips found each other, hungry and insistent. Desperation clawed at her from deep inside. She ached all over, but she wanted him.

Needed him.

He lifted the hem of her nightgown, fingers sliding immediately between her thighs. He teased her to the point of aching before draping her knee over the crook of his elbow.

“Put me inside you,” he commanded, breath hot against her cheek.

She reached between them and her trembling fingers wrapped around the hard length of his erection. Tilting her hips, she guided him to the entrance of her body and pushed herself forward so that he slowly slid inside.

Even her breath shook it felt so good.

He held her leg away from his injured hip as they rocked together. Their breath mingled, foreheads pressed together. Arden had never needed anything like she needed
this
.

“You feel so good inside me,” she whispered, and whimpered when he ground his pelvis harder against hers. Her body ached—inside and out—but even were she dying she wouldn’t have stopped.

“So tight,” he murmured. “So fucking tight and wet.”

She shivered at his words. She’d always liked talking during sex, and so had Luke. “Just for you. I’m wet just for you,” she whispered in reply and was rewarded with a shudder, and a deep thrust that made her gasp.

They continued to whisper heated, wanton things to each other, the intensity increasing with their fervent motions. She came hard, a long, shuddering spasm that wrung itself out of her in a low cry. She clutched at Luke’s shoulders as he stiffened, groaning as his own orgasm hit.

Afterward, they lay pressed against each other, stroking each other’s skin.

“I’m so glad you weren’t seriously injured today,” she murmured. “I was so scared.”

“When I saw that carriage coming at you…” He squeezed her, but not tight enough to hurt. “I don’t ever want to feel that way again.”

Arden wanted to promise him that he wouldn’t, and she wanted him to promise her the same, but that wasn’t a guarantee either one of them could give. The Company and its agents were out there, and they wouldn’t rest until both she and Luke were dead.

Chapter 16

Luke felt as though he’d been hit by a train rather than a horseless carriage. His bones might be unbreakable, but the tissue surrounding them wasn’t impervious to injury, and even though he’d stopped the brunt of the vehicle with his hands, his left side had taken a nasty bash, and his forearm had been cut open.

He and Arden had the devil of a time trying to get out of bed the next morning, and each took a bit of Dr. Stone’s pain medicine. By the time they were bathed and dressed, Luke didn’t feel quite so shite. He even managed to hobble downstairs to the dining room for breakfast. Just what was in that glorious little concoction of the doctor’s?

The morning paper was beside his plate. This Lord of the Manor business was odd, yet familiar, and he was more unsettled by the fact that part of his brain accepted the head of the table, the paper and a valet as “usual” than by the things themselves. He’d feel much more comfortable if it were all a surprise.

Then he saw the morning’s headline, and that was surprise enough.

MAN OR MACHINE? LORD HUNTLEY DESTROYS
RUNAWAY CARRIAGE WITH BARE HANDS!
WHISKED AWAY BY VIRTUOUS WIFE

“Mrs. Bird says they’ve been turning away callers and press all morning,” Arden informed him as she entered the room. She wore a kimono-style gown in rust silk with a teal corset over it.

“I’m not surprised. Are you comfortable in that?”

She nodded. “The corset’s tight enough to keep me from moving in ways that might be painful, but not so restricting that it hurts. Still, I’d prefer the pain to death.”

“You’ve obviously never been tortured,” he remarked before digging into his eggs.

“Have you?”

Luke glanced up to see her standing beside her chair, knuckles white as her cheeks as she gripped the back. “Yes.” As he spoke his mind was filled with a barrage of images of things he’d never realized he’d experienced. The Doctor’s face filled almost every one of them. The Company had tortured him to get information, and when that hadn’t worked, they’d destroyed his memory and made him their puppet.

If he ever got his hands on that bastard Doctor again, he’d kill him.

Arden must have seen the rage and shame on his face, because she wrapped her fingers around his wrist as she sat down on his right, and squeezed. “I’d do anything to take that away from you.”

His gaze locked with hers. “I’ve lost too much of my life as it is. I appreciate the sentiment, however. We don’t need to discuss it any further.” He didn’t want to talk about it. It felt as though it had happened to someone else—just a snippet from a play he’d seen a long time ago.

She nodded and reached for the pile of correspondence between them. “Invitations to parties, balls, dinners and teas. We’ve become very popular, it seems.”

“Everyone wanting to see for themselves if I’m man or machine.” It was ridiculous, really. “They don’t seem to realize that inviting us means inviting an assassin into their midst as well.”

Her expression of dry amusement was so good he almost believed it—but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. That was where he saw the glimmer of fear. “Or perhaps they do. The aristocracy is terribly bored, you know.”

This time it was he who reached out to her, wrapping his fingers around her slender, cool ones. “I won’t let the Company win.”

She nodded—a stilted gesture that didn’t say much for her confidence in him. Or perhaps she simply had too much confidence in the Company. “I know you won’t.”

“Rani Ogitani may have been my lover once, but never after I married you. I need you to know that.”

Arden helped herself to the coddled eggs with a frown tucked between her cinnamon brows. “She’s gorgeous. What man wouldn’t want her?”

“Gorgeous as a cobra,” he retorted. “No man who held his bollocks in any sort of esteem would go within ten feet of her.”

Astonishment slackened her features as she glanced at him while reaching for the salt cellar. “Really? Every woman I know who has seen her remarks on her beauty.”

“I’m not certain what I ever saw in her. There was no emotional attachment, I’m certain.”

“You don’t sound certain.”

“I don’t remember much about her.”

“Then how do you know you weren’t…lovers after our marriage?”

“I know. I don’t need my full memory to know that I might have been an arse, but I was a faithful one.” At least when he knew he had a wife.

She stared at him for a moment, eyes wide, before dropping her gaze to her plate. “I never expected that you would return without the memory of our life. I know it’s unfair of me to be angry for things you cannot remember, but I can’t seem to help it. You are not the same man, and yet sometimes you are. I don’t know how to feel or think.”

Luke rubbed his hand over his mouth. If he could take that from her he would, but there was nothing he could do. He wanted her with him for the rest of his days, but was it because of old feelings, or new ones? He had the benefit of seeing all her newness, while she couldn’t seem to see beyond their past. “It seems we’re both victims of our memories.”

Her head turned. “So, what do we do?”

“Damned if I know,” he replied with a harsh laugh. “Make some new ones? I really don’t want you telling our grandchildren that I betrayed you or tried to kill you.” He meant it as a bit of joke, but she looked as though he’d struck her.

“Grandchildren?”

He couldn’t say anything right this morning. “Have you changed your mind about having children?”

“I…I haven’t allowed myself to think about it much at all.”

“And don’t have to right now.” In fact, it was the last thing they should be thinking about while the Company was trying to kill them. Afterward, when he’d sent every one of their agents home in a coffin, then they could discuss children.

They ate in silence. It seemed that he had shocked his normally verbose wife into losing her voice. Whether that was a good thing or bad remained unknown, like much of his life.

The doorbell rang several times during the course of their meal, but it wasn’t until Luke was finishing his third cup of coffee that Mrs. Bird entered the room, a rather harried expression on her face, one that made Luke remember a young girl with a similar expression. It took several seconds for him to realize that it was a memory of Birdy in their youth. She’d grown up here, her mother the housekeeper before her. The two of them had played together as children.

She had known him longer than Arden. Longer than Alastair. She seemed to like him well enough, so perhaps he hadn’t always been a wanker of the first order.

“Beg your pardon, but Lord Henry is here, my lord.”

“We’re not at home this morning, Mrs. Bird,” Arden replied.

It was obvious that the housekeeper was accustomed to her mistress’s clipped way of speaking because she didn’t flinch at all, though others might have. “I know, my lady, but he has Dr. Vincent and Mr. Kirkpatrick with him.”

Luke had no idea who Mr. Kirkpatrick was, but he remembered Henry mentioning Dr. Vincent during his previous visit. From the way Arden closed her eyes and pressed a hand to her forehead, Kirkpatrick was not a welcome addition.

“Your family solicitor,” she murmured, as though reading his mind. “Put them in the blue drawing room, Mrs. Bird. I think we must see them,” she said to him.

He agreed. “How do I look?”

“Like a bedlamite,” she replied with a slight grin. It seemed they were to find solidarity once more in facing Henry and his companions. “Me?”

“A roughhoused wench.” Pushing back his chair he rose stiffly to his feet. Christ, it hurt. “Think they’ll believe I’m not an automaton?”

She groaned as she stood as well. “Automatons are usually made of brass, and wouldn’t have survived such a collision with their cogs intact. There would be pieces scattered all the way to Hyde Park.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“Yes.” Together they walked to the door. “Your brother has to have heard what happened last night. He has a lot of nerve showing up with this foolishness this morning.”

It was actually noon, but Luke didn’t bother to correct her. He suspected that Henry’s visit was entirely due to last night’s intrigue. It could hardly be seen as proper—or sane—for an earl to cleave a speeding carriage in half.

At a snail’s pace, they made their way to the blue drawing room—Luke had no bloody idea where it was, so he let Arden lead. He was still learning his way around the house. Sometimes he knew exactly where to go, and other times he was lost.

It was bloody frustrating, this knowing and not knowing the progress of his life. Bits and snatches came and went, a confusing barrage of images that often made no sense whatsoever. He knew it did him no good to get angry—that made remembering all the more difficult—but sometimes it was impossible. Sometimes things hovered so close, yet just out of his mind’s reach, and he had to face the fear that he might never get it all back.

Their journey was peppered with curses, groans and hisses of pain. They shared a glance in the corridor that set them both to laughing, which made the pain both worse and bearable. They were still chuckling when they entered the room.

Two of the gentlemen stood right away, Henry a bit more slowly. Once again Luke was struck by the resemblance between them. Did they take after their mother or father? Their parents were like ghosts in his mind—half-formed images that told him nothing. Surely there had to be paintings of them somewhere in the vast recesses of this house?

“Gentlemen,” he said in greeting, offering his hand to the man closest him. “Please excuse our appearance. I’m sure you heard about the adventure we had last night.”

“Adventure?” The man chortled. “I heard it was something much more sinister, Lord Huntley.”

At least the man used his title. “Perhaps, Mr….?”

He looked surprised, jowls jiggling as he jerked back. “Vincent. I delivered your mother of you, my lord.”

Luke grinned to ease the doctor’s discomfort. “I thank you for that, sir. I’m sure my brother has informed you that I have a sort of amnesia.” He shook the other man’s hand as well. “Please, sit.”

“May we offer you any refreshment?” Arden asked. Luke didn’t miss her use of “we.” With that one little word she declared them a unit. A matched set. At that moment he didn’t care if she meant it. It was enough that she had said it.

The three of them declined, which instantly set the tone for the meeting. It was to be all business, then. They were here for one thing alone—to determine whether or not he should be allowed to own the title that was his by birth.

He wasn’t attached to it, but it was one more thing that had been taken from him by the Company. He wasn’t about to let his brother take it from him as well. He was going to reclaim his life if it was the last damn thing he did. He’d most certainly regret it later when he had to deal with tenants and rents, but for now it was something he could at least hold a degree of control over.

He waited for Arden to sit before leaning back against the small writing desk. He didn’t want these men to see how much pain he was in, and trying to sit would reveal just that. Plus, standing gave him a height advantage, which was a timeless intimidation tactic. He crossed his arms over his chest and caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror on the side wall.