Passion (25 page)

“Wait. Stop.” Harry gulped the drink and put
the glass down. She went to Caroline and cupped her face. “Breathe,
Caroline.”

She did, in and out.

“Now then.” Harry took her arm. “Come
upstairs and we will talk. Slowly. I’m afraid I cannot make sense
out of anything you’re saying.”

“But the fire…”

“Yes, yes. I know all of that. I have figured
it out. I am glad, Gabriela? Is with you, with your father. Glad
for the Duke of Eastland. Let’s skip that part, and tell me about
the adventure and this Captain and…”

“—
Jules,” Caroline muttered
at the top of the stairs when they parted. “He’s bloody well making
it all so difficult, even if he is doing the proper
thing.”

Harry urged her to the bedchamber. She sat
Caroline on the bed, and leaned against the window.

Caroline fell back on it though, and put her
hands over her eyes with a groan. “I miss him. Oh, I miss him
Harry.” She began to cry.

Sighing, Harry went to her, held and pat her
and waited for the storm to pass.

When it did, Caroline blew her nose and said,
“Stoneleigh has all but asked for me. We’re seen everywhere
together, and father…he wants the match.”

Carefully, Harry intoned, “You knew he’d
settle on someone, Caroline, and you and Stoneleigh are the ton’s
dream match. Perfect.”

“Yes. We are. But, what about my
Captain?”

Harry blinked. “Your Captain?”

Caroline stared at her. “The adventure,
Harry. The man I’ve given—“

Harry groaned and quickly asked, “How long
has this been going on?”

“Why, since I first came here…the day I was
trying to find your address and I bumped into…”

“—
you never told me
that.”

“I might have, had you not avoided me!”

“I wasn’t avoiding you. I was—busy.” Harry
sighed, having snapped at Caroline. “We’ll iron this out. Do not
worry. Things always work out.”

“Not this, Harry.” Caroline put her hand to
her head and murmured, “This is an awful tangle. And I wish I were
anyone but myself. Stoneleigh will ask for my hand, father will
give it, and then—where will I be?”

“I don’t know where, but I do know
what—you’ll be a future Duchess. Caroline…” Harry closed her eyes a
moment then opened them. “What exactly do you want?”

“I want to see my Captain.” Caroline
whispered.

“Oh, dear God.” Harry felt a headache coming
on. She resigned herself to suffering it, because Caroline was
weeping again. Not just weeping, but also muttering, “He probably
thinks I played him the fool. I have not had a moment to slip out,
thanks to Stoneleigh and his blasted rigidness about schedules. He
is so very—punctual.”

It was a very long hour’s visit, and even
when Caroline had to leave—to be on time for Stoneleigh to collect
her for a musical—Harry still was not certain she could make sense
of it.

One thing was clear however. Jules LeClair,
Earl of Stoneleigh, obviously would end up wed to Lady Caroline
Bordwyc.

At the Assembly Hall

Jules heard Lady Caroline say, “There is my
friend. Excuse me, my lord. I must speak with her.”

He delayed her with a hand on her arm, his
eyes on the woman standing just feet away, dressed in a black
sheath with beads on the bodice, and rows of shimmering fringe on
the bottom of the skirt. Her hair was smoothed in elegant
waves.

“Harry…uh, Lady Harriet, is your friend?”

“Yes.” Caroline’s chin went up. He could feel
her glaring at him before she pulled her arm away. “I’m very proud
to call Harry my friend. She has more sense than half the people
here, of any sex.”

Caroline had walked off, and it took her
reaching Lady Harry for Jules to come out of his muse.

He watched the two talking, Harry arching her
elegant neck down to hear what Caroline was saying. At one point,
Harry’s eyes flickered to him, and it took all of Jules’s ability
not to react. He kept his “social mask” on, but when they walked
together a space off, he found himself following.

When he reached the pair, he bowed to Harry.
“I don’t think we’ve been…formally…introduced.”

Harry’s lips curved but her eyes held
something reserved. “No. How do you do, Lord Stoneleigh? I am Lady
Harriet Brunswick.”

He took the hand she offered, bowed over it,
brushing his lips on it.

“Famous,” Caroline said, but there was a
subtle roll of her eyes with it. “All the niceties are seen to. Now
if you’ll excuse us…” Her hint was not exactly a hint.

Jules had no idea what Harry had told her,
and that put him off balance. He tried to search her face, read it,
but she gave nothing away.

“Certainly. I shall leave the two of you to
talk, and take myself out for air and a cheroot.” He nodded to both
and walked out.

He needed both the air and the smoke, and the
time to wonder at their friendship. Perhaps, like himself, there
was more to Caroline? He would have never thought so. She had a rep
as being even tempered, even sweet, and obedient… Whatever that
meant.

Jules paced the small garden and decided he
hadn’t cared enough when with Caroline to engage her beyond
pleasantries, so he assumed she was as shallow as most, and
consumed with painting water colors, and shopping for hats or
something. When he wondered what she and Harriet had shared as far
as confidences went, he told himself that Harry proved she could
both be discreet and impartial.

She certainly would not tell Caroline
about…

He did not know if it was for his own comfort
that he clung to that, or because it was really true. He had spent
less time with Harry (and in unusual circumstances) than he had
with Lady Caroline, yet he felt he knew her better because there
time had been genuine. Yes, that was his fault. He wanted, strived,
to keep any relationships amid society on a superficial level. That
included Lady Caroline, for obvious reasons. Was it possible….she
was doing the same?

Cursing. He went inside.

Jules joined the ladies, but politely stood a
bit from them, as they were in deep conversation. There was noise
and music in the ballroom, so he just picked up an occasional word
here and there.

Caroline was obviously distressed about
something, though her social mask was on too. He could read her
body language. Harry was cool and composed and yet he saw her pat
Caroline’s arm.

When he was taking his leave, Harry slipped a
note into his white glove. Jules in turn, put it inside his vest
pocket. He did not read it until he had escorted Lady Caroline
home.

“Caroline?” He said distractedly, oddly
anxious to see Harry and using Caroline’s first name for the first
time, prior to taking his leave on the stoop.

“Yes.” She looked surprised.

“I’ve no objection to Lady Harriet. You are
free to chose your friends as you like.”

Her eyes went over his face. “Thank you,
Stoneleigh. Not, that I was seeking permission.”

He almost smiled at that, but murmured
something and got in the coach. The mansion door was still open
when they pulled past and he would swear Caroline stood there with
a puzzled frown on her pretty face.

He entered Harriet’s shade-drawn residence
sometime later, removing his hat and gloves. Jules’s eyes first
found Harry, still in her stunning gown, standing with a glass of
wine by the seating area.

She said as he walked toward her, “There’s
someone here to see you.”

Feeling tension immediately overtake him,
Jules then had a sense of someone, a man, standing just by the
makeshift sideboard, but he kept his eyes on Harry.

“Who?”

“Your blackmailer.”

He placed his hat and gloves on a small table
very carefully. “How did you know?”

“The packet. The one you thought Raith
dropped in your coach and brought it to the guest room. I opened
it. It contained papers. Apparently Stratton’s private
dealings—which held evidence, you were being blackmailed.”

Other questions were filtering through Jules
mind at an alarming speed, yet he masked that and finally walked
past Harry. He found himself facing a male profile and when the man
turned, Jules recognized him, tall, handsome, with thick light
brown hair, and very pale blue eyes.

He murmured, “Sir George.”

Cowley nodded, his gaze holding Jules’s with
obvious reluctance.

“Why?”

The man confessed softly, “Stratton… was
blackmailing me.”

“Why?”

George held his gaze more meaningfully this
time and waved his hand, as if to say, the obvious.

What he did confess was, “Unlike you, I
didn’t have a fortune at my disposal, Stoneleigh. I could think of
none of my acquaintances, who could help me. As you may know, I
have been employed as a currier for the war office…”

Leaning back against the table, wanting a
whiskey but forgoing it, Jules felt a nerve tic in his jaw. He had
gone to university with Sir George, but since their circles were
not the same, they rarely mingled. He would have never thought of
him…

“You kept blackmailing me after
Stratton…died. Why?”

George looked down at the glass of port he
held. “Because—of the scandals—the investigations. I had no way of
knowing the information that Lady Harry somehow got hold of, was
not still uncoverable. I would be beyond ruined. My…life…would be
over, either way. I needed the money to leave, and go somewhere, to
start over. I knew I’d have to disappear before there was more
digging into Stratton’s affairs.”

Hand covering his mouth a moment, pensive,
uncomfortable, Jules did not look from the man. He tried to feel
some sympathy, but the blackmail had put him through his own
hell.

He dropped his hand and asked coolly, “Did
you set this up, years ago?”

“No.” George looked up, obviously surprised.
“No, of course not.” He finished his drink and turned to set the
glass down. His profile was still to Jules as he offered tightly,
“I had seen you when…two years before. Nevertheless, you did not
join the wilder goings on that most of our mates got up to. You
were always studying.”

He cleared his throat. “Females, who were
brought to the hall, were forever going on about your looks—. They
are hard to miss—by anyone. But plenty of the chaps were just
as...…” He motioned with his hand as if to imply Jules could fill
in the blanks.

Jules knew he was not going to like what came
next, but for all the tension in his guts, he had to know.

George murmured, “When you joined the revelry
the night before, I was there. I…was not drinking or partaking. I
had just a glass of wine that noon. I….”

Feeling heat in his face, yet sure he could
mask it Jules gathered George witnessed his loss of virginity,
among other sexual acts.

“Yes, well…” George sucked in a breath and
let it out. “The next night, after you’d left with the female…and
you came back. I saw…. my chance.”

There was some silence following that and
Jules resisted looking at Harriet, who leaned against that
cluttered table across the room.

He asked George bluntly, “Did you put
something in my drink?”

“Not me, no. A chum of mine, yes. It was not
dangerous, just a… relaxant. Something to lower the inhibitions. I
had used it before myself, and I…I did not want to take advantage
of you and I had thought perhaps you would be…inclined. But that,
like some, you would struggle to release those inhibitions.”

“—
How much do you need?” It
was asked abrupt and cold from Jules.

Sir George named a sum.

Again, that nerve twitched in Jules jaw, but
he said coolly, “I’ll have it for you in the morning. Then— it is
over. Finished. I never want to hear from you again.”

Nodding, the man finally turned. Jules
allowed him to look at him for long moments and he read everything
there, rather distantly, but still seeing regret, embarrassment,
and yes, an attraction.

Sir George murmured, “I’m sorry. I was
desperately terrified of what Stratton would do…”

“You should have simply come to me,
George.”

A half smile lit on George’s mouth. “No
one—simply comes to you, Stoneleigh.”

Jules scanned George’s face. “As of tomorrow.
It’s over.”

George nodded. “I’ll sail on the first ship
to Italy.” He hesitated a moment, then moved away.

Jules watched him stride toward the entry and
pick up his hat and coat, and then leave.

Turning to pour that whiskey, Jules did so,
and drank it straight down. He let the glass slide to the table
with a clink and took up the bottle. He turned to look at
Harriet.

She had her arms folded, hips against the
table.

Jules strode over and took her by the upper
arm, leading her around and to the chair he’d once sat in. he
locked the door, subdued all the lamps, so that only the firelight
bathed them.

Eyeing her relaxed figure, that muse-smile on
her lips, he removed jacket and cravat, and undid his shirt,
afterwards seating himself in the chair she once held. Sitting back
himself, he sipped enough from the bottle to feel it burn and have
his head pleasantly buzzing.

His black mane mussed, lying against his
sculpted cheeks and down on his shoulders, the white shirt was
opened and laying wide enough to expose the slabs of his upper
chest, hard dark nipples, and ridged stomach.

Jules unlatched his snug black trousers,
strong thighs wide, the material between tugged open exposing
shimmering black hair and the round, peach length of his sex. The
crown was flushed, smooth. The stone hard shaft was fully veined.
His long artistic fingers skimmed up it and then passed over the
head lightly several times.

He did this repeatedly, touching down to the
base gliding up and over, playing softly and tracing the sensitive
crown. The firelight caught on the moisture beading at the tip. He
touched a finger to it, smoothing it against the head.