Miracle (40 page)

A slow smile curved his mouth. He took her face in his hands, lightly, gently, and tipped her head to one side. His kiss was tentative at first, just a dry brush of his lips across hers, then he slid his mouth onto hers with a boldness and hunger that made her whimper.

He closed one hand on her breast, then slid it down her side, trailed it along her thigh, his fingers tugging up her skirt while his mouth did odd things to her senses. Very odd.

Then his fingertips slid up the inside of her leg while he imprisoned her with his other arm and kissed her so forcefully she thought her neck would snap.

She wiggled and attempted to break away. She was suddenly suffocating, repelled, and she shook her head, or tried to, and attempted to wedge her arms between them. "Please," she finally managed to gasp, and turned her face away. She struggled as he gripped her more tightly, buried his face in the curve of her throat and drew the delicately thin skin there between his sharp teeth.

"Stop," she said. "Don't—you're hurting me. Please, Your Grace, not here."

"Thought you missed me," he growled in her ear. Then his hand was on her there—between her legs, and as she tried her best to pull away, he spun her around, onto the desk, knocking knickknacks and paperweights onto the floor. With one quick movement, he flung up her dress and proceeded to unbutton his breeches.

There was a knock at the door.

He froze.

Closing her eyes, Miracle whispered, "Thank God. Thank God. Thank God—"

Gazing down at her, his gray eyes amused, one eyebrow lifted, he murmured, "What a shame. Just when we were getting started."

Miracle jumped away. She backed toward the door as Salterdon straightened and righted his clothes, flicked away a speck of lint from the sleeve of his immaculate, splendidly tailored, navy blue cutaway, and
retucked
his stock.

Another knock.

"What is it?" he replied.

"Lord Collingwood is here to see you, Your Grace," came the announcement through the door.

"Collingwood!" Salterdon strode past Miracle to the door and whipped it open.

"Salterdon," came the greeting. "I heard you were back in London. The fellows are meeting at the Windsor at
Charing
Cross at half-past. Come join us."

Still standing rock still, her hand pressed to her mouth, the somehow disturbing taste of him on her lips, Miracle tried to ignore the sense of coldness and anger that sank like an anchor in the pit of her stomach.

Where were the butterflies? That exhilarating rush of thrill she'd experienced at Cavisbrooke each time he touched her? Even when he looked at her with such smoldering eyes, her heart had stopped. Where was all that pent-up desire she had harbored for him the last many days?

Why had she felt so . . . repulsed?

The voices in the foyer rose and fell in camaraderie: boisterous and hardy, occasionally vulgar, reminding her of those awful days Salterdon and his friends had occupied Cavisbrooke. Miracle tiptoed toward the entry, only to be stopped short as Salterdon appeared again, a well-dressed stranger behind him and peering curiously over his shoulder.

"Sorry to rush," the duke told her with a smug grin. "Perhaps later we'll take up where we left off. Hmm?" Then he winked and closed the door in her face.

"Who, or rather what, was that?" came the amused query as they departed the house.

"No one," came the reply. "Simply an acquaintance."

A moment passed, then the door opened a fraction. Gertrude peered around the door, her wide, round eyes as big as pennies. "Never mind, lass," she said. "His Grace is a busy man."

"Obviously."

Drawing back her shoulders, her jaw set and chin thrusting, Miracle marched by the sympathetic servant and headed for the stairs.

"Will
ya
be
havin
'
yer
afternoon tea, milady?"

"No, thank you," she replied, her voice cracking.

Reaching her room on the second level of the four-story townhouse, Miracle kicked open the door, then stood for a moment, counting backward from ten while the pain in her toe throbbed abominably. Limping, she paced the floor, moving first to her bed, then to the window. Below, traffic moved up and down the crowded lane, and beyond that, riders paraded through Hyde Park on high-prancing blooded horses.

She thought of Napitov and
Majarre
, Aziz and
Salifa
. She thought of Ismail, stooped over his
wujar
or playing his flute. She thought of the lighthouse, dark now, with no one to run it. How many ships might be lost on the Race because there would be no light to warn them during the storms? She thought of her pigs and chickens and the doves that roosted in the moss growing so lushly along
Cavisbrooke's
skyward parapets.

Oh, John, if you were here, you would know what to do, to say. You would assure me that everything is going to be fine; that these terrible doubts that have arisen will soon go away; that I've made the right decision, that I've fallen in love with the right man.

Dear, sweet John: who had only wanted to protect her from all the ugly truths, whose devotion to her and her mother had never faltered through the years. He had sacrificed his life for them. If he were here, he would know what to do. If he were here, mayhap she wouldn't feel so lost and lonely and suddenly so desperately frightened.

"Lass," came Gertrude's voice close behind her. "
Yer
toe is
bleedin
'. Let me fetch
ya
a bowl of tepid water and—"
"No,
thank you."

"Milady,
ya
mustn't take his rudeness of manner to heart. It's the way of '
em
,
ya
know. And what with His Grace's friends all
pilin
' in for the high season—"

"Did you know," she interrupted, "that until I came to London, I wasn't aware of the season? I'm certain my mother must have spoken of it. She wasn't like me, you know. She had such grand dreams. She would've felt right at home in London, with these people. She would've known what to say and do, and she would never have cloistered herself up in this house, never seeing another soul."

She sniffed and did her best to smile. "I wonder if she felt this way before she . . . married my father."

"What way, milady?"

"Frightened. Confused. Disappointed. And . . . angry."

"I reckon all lasses would feel that way. But it all comes down to
lovin
' him, don't it?
Ya
do love him, milady?"

"I did.
I do!
It's just . . ."

She turned back to the bed and threw herself across it.

"There, there," Gertrude said, "If
yer
worried that His Grace
ain't
fond, well, I seen his face when he first
brung
ya
here. I vow I
ain't
certain I ever saw him so happy. There was something in his eyes—"

"But it's not there now," Miracle argued. "At least, not today." She shivered with the memory of his touching her.

"Aye. He did seem a bit more like his old self. His Grace can be a mite on the temperamental side. Then again, the trait runs in his family. His brother—"

"But you don't understand." She buried her face in a pillow. "It's
more
than that.
More
than just being temperamental.

"What is it, lass? You can talk to Gertrude."

"Oh,
Gerti
," she wept. "His hands were cold!"

Remorse: beholding heaven and feeling hell.

GEORGE MOORE

Chapter Sixteen

"Hear ye all members of this said establishment, Brookes' Club for distinguished noblemen and gentlemen at sixty Saint James Street, that on this night of June, in the year of our Lord, 1800, the following rules will apply in the course of business:

No gaming in the eating room, except tossing up for reckonings, on penalty of paying the whole bill of the members present."

"Tossing up the bloody food is more like it," Lord Selwyn shouted, and the patrons of the club, which included James Fox, Lord Carlisle, Sir
Stepney
, and Lord Robert Spencer, the duke of Marlborough's brother, let out a tremendous shout of approval.

"We're damn tired of beefsteaks, boiled fowl with oyster sauce, and apple tarts for our dinner! I expect a bit of pheasant and fish for all the money I wager and lose in this dignified establishment," Sir
Stepney
declared with a roaring laugh, then added, "The Salon
des Etrangers
provides its noblemen with leg of mutton, roasted goose or pigeon, and currant pudding at no extra cost. I say we all hoist our sails for Paris, gents. All in favor?"

"And lick Napoleon's boots? Poppycock and balderdash. I'd feast on boiled beef until my dying day before I agree to that."

Someone pounded a gavel. Another rang a bell.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen!" the club crier beseeched the rowdy gamblers and patrons until their laughter subsided somewhat. Only then did he continue.

"Every person playing at the new guinea table do keep fifty guineas before him.

"Every person playing at the twenty guinea table do not keep less than twenty guineas before him. Hear ye, hear ye, so be the established rules of this order by Sir Brooks himself. Continue with your gaming, sirs."

"Continue with our gaming," Lord Spencer declared and lifted his glass of port toward the hazard table. "As if I ever stopped. But say, one of our fine colleagues is pocketing his guineas—sorry as they may be—and bidding us a fond goodnight—or mayhap not so fond. Basingstoke! One more go at faro and
macao.
I'll even spot you a few shillings. You damn well need it, the way you've been losing the last few nights. What's happened,
oF
boy? Lady luck finally decide to shine her golden light on someone else for a change?"

Clayton pressed a coin into the servant's palm who delivered his coat and tried his best to ignore the cajoling of his boisterous companions. Briefly, he squeezed closed his burning eyes: too much smoke, too many late night hours, too little sleep. Too much ale and French wine. And bad gin.

He should be back at Basingstoke. Home. Pouring out his energy and frustration on turning the soil, on planting, building, instead of festering and growing more agitated in these stifling surroundings. He'd lost a bloody fortune the last few days, all because he couldn't keep his mind off Miracle Cavendish.