Kiss the Earl (16 page)

With a heavy breath, Patrick considered. On the one hand, he'd be hunted until Amelia was found. It was only thanks to his staff's vigilance that no one from Brown Hall knew that he was in residence here. On the other, there was Ella, her face so sad when she'd said she wanted to go home. Though it pained him to think of her departure, he could not deny her.

There really was no choice, no choice at all.

“Amelia is almost certainly safe with her vicar. She does not need us for the moment, but Ella does. I need you to find someone who is practiced in magic,” Patrick said quite seriously. “Find someone who knows about magic mirrors, and then bring them here.”

He stood and turned his back to his cousin, reaching into his pocket and rubbing the face of his pocket watch absentmindedly.

“I promised her that I would send her home, and no matter what, I shall see it done.”

The predator stared at Ella, huge, golden eyes unblinking, ready to pounce.

“Please,” Ella said, not too proud to beg. “My leg is falling asleep, and I need to move it. Can you please just let me slide over a little?”

The predator lowered its paw, just a touch.

Ella pushed the covers back, folding them slowly, carefully so as not to startle her attacker. She'd been through this before, for almost a week now. It never got any easier.

Just when she thought it might be safe enough, the ache in her leg became too much to bear. With a hissed-in breath, she moved her leg, her toes making a small mountain beneath the covers as her good foot turned upright.

Then she screamed as Elspeth pounced.

“You stupid freaking cat!” Ella swatted at the feline, who'd clawed at Ella's big toe from over the covers—thankfully too thick to allow the orange menace's claws to penetrate them—and then bolted from the room like a fuzzy, orange lightning bolt.

“Miss Briley? Are you all right?” Mrs. Templeton bustled into the room, carrying an armload of linens.

“I'm fine. That cat attacked my toes again.” Ella flopped back against the pillows, staring at the ceiling. “It's like she's possessed. The minute she sees my foot move, it's like her sacred duty to scare the crap out of me.”

“Language, dear,” Mrs. Templeton clucked, holding the door open for the footman. He staggered into the room, the weight of the big brass tub almost too much for him to handle. Setting it in front of the fire, he gave a loud, relieved breath.

“What's going on?” Ella sat up and bit her lip, almost bouncing. It was too good to be true. It was really, really too good to be true.

“You, miss, are well enough to have a bath.”

Ella had never considered swooning in her life. She'd thought that swooning was something only women stuffed into corsets did. She was much more likely to punch something than she was to swoon. But, at the thought of a bath, she strongly considered laying the back of her hand on her brow and sinking dramatically against the pillows.

She watched with greed as bucket after bucket of steamy water was brought into the room and poured into the tub. It seemed to take forever, and by the time the footman was done, she'd almost convinced herself it wasn't happening.

“There we are, miss.” Mrs. Templeton checked the water with her forefinger and smiled. “'Tis perfect. Now, can I help you to get in?”

She'd almost been convinced she could float over to the tub, carried on a waft of her own stench, but Ella knew that was probably wrong. So she just nodded, and with Mrs. Templeton holding her up, she hopped to the tub.

Mrs. Templeton pulled the nightshirt over Ella's head. Ella thought really hard about being embarrassed, but she couldn't be. Not anymore. This past week had been the most humiliating of her life, so why argue about a little nudity?

A pleasured hiss escaped Ella's lips as she sank into the steamy water. Leaning her head back against the high lip of the tub, she closed her eyes and let the heat of the water soothe her.

“I shall go and fetch some scented soaps for you. There now. Sit there and just relax. I'll be back in a tick.” Mrs. Templeton smoothed the hair away from Ella's forehead, clucked a little, and then left the room.

Ella couldn't help but smile after the older woman. She seemed to have taken on the role of mother hen where Ella was concerned. She'd been there so much during Ella's sickness, always ready with a kind word or a glass of lemonade once Ella had been conscious enough to tell them how much she didn't like tea.

Raising her foot from the water, Ella watched as the clear rivulets ran down her more-than-prickly leg. Of course, even the sweet and kind Mrs. Templeton hadn't done as much for her as Patrick had.

Sinking into the water up to her eyes, Ella stared at the fire, knowing that her cheeks must be as bright as the flames there. God. He'd done everything for her—even carried her to the chamber pot a few times.

“Bbb-bblgggg,” she groaned into the water, then sank completely beneath it. It'd be nice if she could develop some gills and live here, so she wouldn't have to face Patrick again.

He'd been way too nice to her. Too kind. He'd kissed her when she'd begged for it—
begged
, like a starving dog just waiting for a scrap of affection.

When her lungs started to burn, Ella finally came up for air. Dashing the water from her eyes, she blew a big, fat raspberry.

“Are you all right?”

Oh
good
God, not now
. Ella yelped with alarm, grabbing the closest towel and plastering it over her naked breasts. “Patrick!”

He strode into the room, a concerned look on his face as he stopped next to the tub, looking down at her. “Mrs. Templeton told me that you were in the bath, but I am not sure you've the strength. Are you feeling all right? Are you weak at all? I can assist—”

Her face was hot enough to melt iron. “I'm really okay, actually. And I'm kind of embarrassed, so if we could talk about this later?”

“You should not bathe alone. Someone should wash your hair, and—”

“It's really okay,” Ella squeaked. “Seriously, I'm fine. Where I come from, we always bathe alone. No help needed.”

He crouched down by the tub, his face even with hers. “You have been so ill, Ella. I would but ensure your health as much as I may before you go.”

God, why did he keep doing this to her? He was going to marry another woman, but all Ella could think about as she looked into his beautiful green eyes was asking him to kiss her again.

“You can't be here with me,” she whispered. “I'm naked.”

“And I have cared for every inch of you since you fell ill. No one knows that we are here, so your reputation will remain unblemished. On my word as a gentleman, your person will be safe. Now, can you ease my mind and let me assist you?”

She wanted to say yes. He was right—she was still about as strong as wet fettuccine. But she wanted him. He was gorgeous and kind, and he was somebody else's.

Slamming her eyes shut, Ella forced out the words. “What about your fiancée? Amelia won't like it if she hears about this.”

The only sound for a moment was the crackling of the fire and the low, even breathing next to her. But Ella couldn't open her eyes. She couldn't stand the thought of seeing Patrick's face shuttered, guilty as he thought of the woman he loved.

The woman he'd betrayed by saving Ella's life instead of running to find her, his intended.

“I… Amelia will be fine.”

Her eyes flew open, and her jaw went slack. “What?”

Patrick didn't look her in the eye, but he said, “She would understand, Ella. For the moment, I am content that she is safe. I cannot help her at this moment, but I can help you.”

His hand cupped her cheek, and Ella found herself falling again.

Not into the tub, but into his eyes. And God help her, she never wanted to ascend again.

* * *

Keeping away from her bedside had become increasingly difficult as the days went by. He'd been in the stables, where he'd been making sure that both Bacon and Kipper had been installed comfortably in their new home. They'd arrived only that morning, and he'd needed the space away from Ella to think, to breathe normally.

But when he'd returned to the house to find Mrs. Templeton descending the steps and informing him in a pleased tone that the young miss was in the bath, he'd panicked and flown up the stairs like the devil himself was after him. All he could picture was her falling unconscious and slipping beneath the surface of the water, never to wake again.

But now, with her staring at him, his hand on her cheek, her soft, pink tongue darting out to wet her lips, he found himself moving closer and closer to her.

He had denied himself and Ella so many times over the past few days. He'd stayed as far away as he could. But he'd longed to kiss her again, the way he had when she'd woken just before her fever broke, thinking she was close to death.

She looked up at him, the towel over her breasts slipping lower as she leaned forward.

And God help him, he could deny them no longer.

His lips captured hers, their softness beckoning him deeper, begging that he possess her further. Hands tangled in her wet hair, he groaned into her mouth, devastated by the sweetness of her. Her lips parted, and he entered the warmth of her mouth with his tongue, taking her gasp into him, feeling it deep inside his bones.

God, she wanted him like he wanted her, and wasn't that a heady feeling?

Tentatively, she rested her hands on his biceps, and his kiss grew more needy, more frenzied at her touch. She matched him stroke for stroke, and when his hands ran down her neck to her bare shoulders, she spread her hands across his chest, neither of them caring that damp patches were spreading across the fine lawn of his shirt.

He almost stopped there, his brain shouting at him that she was not his, that this could never work, but then that bedamned towel slipped off into the bathwater, leaving her exposed to his wandering hands.

And wander they did.

Not even in his dreams had her skin been so soft, so warm, so thoroughly delicious to touch. He moved slowly, his palms sliding down her chest, atop the creamy swells that he'd noted that first night in her sinful blue slip of a dress, then lower, the hard peaks of her nipples drilling into his palm. He ripped his mouth from hers, then blazed a trail of burning kisses down the length of her neck. Heaven help him, he was lost. He kissed his way to the swell of her breast, lifting her higher, out of the water enough that her dusky, hardened pink nipple broke the surface, begging him to take it into his mouth and worship it.

Worship her.

But just before his anxious lips could close on that beautiful bud, approaching footsteps sent him backward, severing their contact. His bum connected with the floor, and he could but scramble to his feet like a drunkard.

Ella's surprised blue eyes locked onto his only a second before a humming Mrs. Templeton entered the room.

“Here we are, miss! I've some lovely scented soaps for you here, and…” The housekeeper stopped, the basket full of bottles clinking. “Oh, my lord, I did not see you there.”

“Yes,” Patrick said, straightening his shirt. “I stopped to see how Miss Briley was faring. But now that you are here, I shall leave you to see to her.”

Ella's mouth fell open, her lips swollen and red from their passionate kisses, but he could not stop. He whirled on his heel and left the room, hoping that his erection had gone unnoticed by them both.

Guilt chased him down the stairs and out the front door, into the somewhat gray and gloomy day. It was not raining yet, but it would be soon. The gravel of the drive crunched under Patrick's boots, his long strides taking him away from the house.

From her.

But not far enough. He could not outrun the feelings that had been growing inside him for some time now.

He kicked a large stone, wishing it were his own weakness. He could not forgive himself for lying to Ella that way, even though it had been for her own good. If she still believed him to be engaged to Amelia, perhaps her heart would be protected in a way his was not.

With a heavy breath, Patrick sank onto the wooden bench beneath the gazebo, his mother's favorite place to sit when she'd been alive. He'd never known her, as she'd died birthing him, but he'd often come out here to sit as a boy. It made him feel as if she were near. The weathered wood was surrounded with pinkish hydrangeas, his mother's favorite flower. Plucking one tiny blossom from the largest snowball on the nearest bush, he twirled it between two fingers, watching the swirl of color and thinking.

He'd not forgotten what Ella had said before she asked him to kiss her.

She'd said, “Home. I want to go home.”

Patrick twirled the flower faster. Home. When she'd believed herself to be dying, she had wanted only to return to the place she belonged. And how could he blame her? After she had told him of all the things in her world, he could not pretend that he would not infinitely prefer the convenience and safety of such a place.

He stared straight ahead as drops began to darken the broad green leaves of the hydrangea bush. If things were different, he could see Ella as his countess. Her beautiful dark hair swept into a fancy coiffure, with curls and ribbons woven through it. Her dancing a waltz with him, the rest of society looking on and murmuring about the beauty of the new peeress. Her laughing with him, loving with him, bearing his children…

“My lord.”

Patrick looked up. His butler was standing just before him, damp from the rain.

“Yes, Sharpwicke, what is it?”

“A letter has arrived for you, sir, delivered by special messenger just a moment ago. I thought it best to bring it straight to you. It appears to be written in a female hand, if you don't mind my saying so.”

“Thank you,” Patrick said, and took the letter from Sharpwicke's hand. The butler stood there a moment while Patrick read the direction.

Sharpwicke was right; his name on the outside was written in a female's hand—Amelia's, to be exact. For some reason, though he expected relief at the sight, he felt nothing.

“If you do not mind my saying so, my lord, it appears that Miss Brownstone—”

“I do mind, Sharpwicke. Please return to the house.”

Sharpwicke twisted his lips in a dissatisfied expression. Patrick couldn't blame him, not really. It was not like him to be so abrupt with his servants. But the butler bowed and reluctantly left Patrick to his note, his shoulders rounded as he made his way through the drizzle to the house.

Breaking the green wax seal on the back of the missive, Patrick unfolded it and read.

Dear Fairhaven,

I am sorry. Please do not worry. I am fine. I shall write to you again soon.