Steamlust (20 page)

Early on I’d devised a little automaton that could thwart any lock, but this one was so simple, I could’ve done it myself. The hidden room was more a deterrent to prying eyes than a vault to prevent valuables from being stolen.

In other words, we were greeted with a room full of salacious writings and artwork: photographs of women wearing stockings and shoes and pearls and little else; photographs of women with men in the act of love; paintings, etchings, sketches.

There were small statues from the Orient, which at first glance looked like two lovers in a chaste embrace, but when you turned them over, you saw in clear detail that beneath their robes, they were copulating.

I saw books—titles I recognized and, I confess, some of which I had read—describing all manner of perverse things.

Although all these things were considered ungentlemanly and, indeed, outwardly shunned by society, they were available to people of mature age and respected morals…which meant the wealthy.

“Good lord,” Benedict said. “Philippa, avert your eyes. This obviously isn’t what we’re looking for—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I snapped. The moment I’d seen the room, I had felt a fresh flood of desire, and it made me unaccountably tetchy. “I’m not innocent about these things.”

Benedict stared at me. “But…a lady…”

I snorted. “When have I ever been a lady? My parents felt a woman should be educated in the ways of pleasure. And I’m no
innocent, Benedict. My bed has been shared.”

He shook his head, a stunned expression in his dark eyes. “I had no idea.”

“Well, now you do.” I wanted to leave—or I wanted to stay and have him leave.

Now he gazed around the room, arms crossed over his chest. Although I didn’t know why, I waited. Finally, inexplicably, he said, “You did the right thing, telling Thomas it was time to move on. Three years is too long.”

“Two years,” I corrected automatically. What was he on about?

And then it all made sense: his expressions, his demeanor, his willingness tonight to walk away from easy money.

The dull, delicious ache between my thighs was joined by a curious churning sensation in my stomach.

“Too long,” he repeated, as if he hadn’t heard me. His eyes were on my lips. “I believe,” he said slowly, “that I have been a right fool.”

“Benedict?” I whispered, not daring to hope.

“Pippa,” he said. “I’ve long respected you—though I fear I’ve never said as much—but I thought after I’d lost in love that I would never find another love match. That I should be practical and strive only for a relationship of convenience…yes, one of money.”

“Benedict.”

He took my hands. Was it the first time he’d done so? I believe it was, and I thrilled to the simple touch.

“I think now that I’ve loved you longer than I can imagine,” he said. “I just didn’t believe—”

If romantic stories, and even the books in this room, were to be believed, it was appropriate that he should initiate a kiss.

I have never put much stock in
appropriate
.

He held my hands. It was a simple enough matter to yank him toward me so he was within range for me to press my lips against his.

I half feared he’d pull away. But to his credit, after a moment’s surprise, he responded in kind—better, even, in that he released my hands and cupped my face in his in order to draw me in closer.

I allowed myself to be drawn under by the kiss, which reignited the fires in my breasts and loins, better than I could have ever imagined. His touch, his tongue—oh, sweet mercy, the way his tongue stroked against mine! I only hoped he was skilled in the ways of performing that motion elsewhere.

If he wasn’t, I could assuredly teach him.

Also unlike the penny dreadfuls, this was no gentle coming together, with no sweet music swelling. This was unleashed passion, desperate groping, and the only sound was the blood in my ears and perhaps Chinese fireworks.

The swelling, I suspected, was in Benedict’s trousers.

We broke apart, chests heaving, gasping for air, and as much as I wanted him to take me right there, amidst the explicit depictions of lovemaking, I said “No. This is a shrine to his lost love. It wouldn’t be right.”

“I agree,” Benedict said, surprising me once again.

Thank the heavens for my automaton, because my hands shook too hard for me to have locked the room up again on my own. Then we were racing upstairs, uncaring of who might spy us.

Once back in my room, he made short work of the laces of my robe, then stood back to admire me, shaking his head, before taking my face in his and kissing me again with a ferocity that left me shaking. With trembling hands I plucked at his clothing—he was still fully dressed so it took longer to strip him bare than it did me.

Finally we were on the high, soft bed; lips to lips, flesh to flesh. Benedict’s hands roamed my body, stroking, petting, sensitizing. He followed with kisses and, when he discovered I enjoyed them, gentle nips.

He worshipped my breasts, suckling and pinching, murmuring his awe and delight over them as I squirmed and moaned.

My need for him was ferocious, but I also wanted to explore his body as he had mine. We rolled as one, and as I straddled him to press my lips to his chest, he restlessly drew his hands up beneath his head beneath the pillow.

“Hallo, what’s this?” He drew out my personal pleasuring device.

At any other time I might have been mortified. But his reaction emboldened me: understanding dawned on his face as he sussed what the man-shaped object was for, and an enormous smile lit his face as he looked at me. His member surged against my thigh. “Pippa, you little minx! Did you invent this thing?”

“I did,” I said, plucking it from his hand. I showed him how it operated, with dials to select the intensity at which it hummed.

He reached for it, but I held it away. As randy as he’d made me, it was still my turn to play. I slid farther down on the bed. His cock was red, oozing clear fluid. I rubbed my thumb along the head of him, making him groan, and then tasted the sticky sweetness.

Although my device was shaped like him—made for pleasuring a woman—the vibrating surface proved to be highly pleasing when I ran it over his prick and balls.

Even as I thrilled to see how it excited him, I couldn’t help but ponder how I might fashion a similar device designed specifically for men. So I was startled when Benedict encircled my wrist with his long fingers and drew me down beside him.

“Ordinarily I love the way you’re always working out the
next bit of engineering,” he said, “but right now my goal is to make you stop thinking about everything. Everything except me, and how you feel when I do this—”

He crouched between my legs and ran his fingers along my most intimate folds, slipping in my wetness. I tried to cry out his name, but it caught in my throat.

“—and this—”

Now his tongue stroked and swirled on my pearl—he needed no instruction, to be sure—and the noise I made was incoherent. Thought indeed fled as my need reached a dizzying height.

“—and especially
this
.”

He slid his fingers inside me, coaxing and thrusting, and continued his sweet assault on my pearl, and I shrieked and writhed as sweet ecstasy consumed me.

At which point, he pulled me atop him and encouraged me to sink down on his stiff prick, which sent me over the edge yet again. Gripping my hips, he shouted my name as he joined me.

There would be time later to speak of past loves, healing hearts and future dreams. Right now, all souls were at peace.

E
liza St. Vincent tapped her toe impatiently. She never had been particularly good at waiting. There were times when this unfashionable habit served her well. She never hesitated to go after anything she wanted, and that ambition had been much to her advantage in the world beyond London. Strange archaeological digs held no terrors for her, nor was she the type to mind getting dirty or climbing into cobwebbed catacombs.

In London, however, that world of soft feminine hands that poured tea instead of wielding a shovel; where flabby female backsides idly sat in parlors instead of straddling a horse racing across gritty deserts; where painted lips spoke only of the weather and the latest fashions instead of reading ancient texts or puzzling over mathematical equations; in that paper and lace world, her impatience was no asset. Already she had gained several telling glances. She raised her eyes to look at the street and immediately those good, gentle people, who had, really, nothing better to do, quickly went about their business,
pretending with their icy dignity that they had not been staring at the woman standing on the doorstep of one of the city’s most eccentric inventors. Eliza was certain that, once they were out of her sight, there would be much gossiping behind elegantly gloved hands.

Eliza had been waiting, with as much grace as she could manage, on Justin Clayworth’s front porch for almost an hour—without knocking, without going in, and only occasionally looking down at the timepiece fitted on a gold chain around her waist. To be honest, she was astonished that no one had yet inquired as to her business. Unmarried ladies did not, as a matter of habit, visit a bachelor’s home without proper escort and invitation; if they did so at all, they did so with the utmost discretion and concern for their reputations.

To pass the time, Eliza removed the letter from Doctor Clayworth from her pocket. It was well creased, smudged with dirt, spotted with tears, and showed all evidence of having been read nearly to tatters. She had long ago memorized the contents, but reading the words her beloved mentor wrote to her—his last, parting wishes—it was almost as if she could hear his voice again. The style was completely his own, and he wrote exactly as he spoke.

Eliza smiled again over these words. From any other, the love behind such a criticism might not have been obvious, but
Doctor Clayworth treasured the unusual, the unique, and above all, the spirit of creation, the lust for knowledge, and the drive to succeed that imbued each of his associates and students and could not have failed from reaching his only child.

Eliza tilted the parasol to shade her hand and opened up the auspiciometer. Sunlight—and it was an oddly bright, sunny day, quite unusual for London’s spring—interfered with the device’s function. From a distance, the device looked like nothing so much as a slightly oversized man’s watch. It was only by looking at the face that any would see it was more, much more. Several sweeping hands passed over the surface. One indicated the direction, another counted down toward the Golden Moment: the moment when luck and action combined to bring about the best possible results. She could only have wished it was more accurate as to the timing. The immediacy of this Golden Moment had wavered back and forth for the last two hours.

Most people were fortunate if they’d struck more than a half-dozen of the perfect moments. The opportunity passed them by before they even realized what path their lives might have taken if they’d just said a word, met the glance or made the decision. With the auspiciometer, Eliza had only missed a scant handful. She’d placed the right bets, met the right patrons, stumbled across the find of a century more than once, and invested in the right businesses.

With a little luck, she thought, smiling to herself, everything was possible.

The auspiciometer’s hands ticked up to matching another Golden Moment.

Eliza rapped on the door.

Mere seconds later, a sudden, violent explosion rocked the house. Eliza squeaked in surprise and staggered backward, forgetting the narrow incline of steps behind her. She was
teetering on the edge when her arm was firmly grasped by the man opening the door. She blinked and looked up at her savior.

Justin Clayworth was not at all what she expected. His father, the doctor, was an excitable genius, a scrawny, aging man with the barest remains of his hair clinging to his scalp and enormously bushy eyebrows that seemed determined to make up the lack. The son, on the other hand, was tall and broad shouldered. His hair, which stuck all up in the front as if he was constantly running a hand through it while thinking, was thick and a rich golden brown, the exact shade of honey being dripped from a spoon. He had moss-green eyes and a smudge of ash along one narrow cheek.

“And you are?”

“Eliza St. Vincent?” She introduced herself hesitantly. “Professor Clayworth?” Surely this handsome, very masculine man couldn’t be the scientist she had intended to meet.

“Well, which one is it? Because I assure you, if you don’t know who you are, I’m quite unable to assist you. Although I’m fairly certain that
I’m
Professor Clayworth. So perhaps you are Eliza St. Vincent?” He took her hand in his, and even through the thin leather of her gloves, she could feel the heat of his skin, warming her in places she hadn’t even known she was cold. “In which case, you are about two hours late. Your letters gave me reason to expect you somewhat
before
I blew up my lab.”

“And here I thought I was right on time,” Eliza responded pertly.

Justin bowed her into the house, eyes lingering on her as she passed. Eliza wondered what he must see when he gazed at her. Women’s fashions were meant to contain and constrain everything about her, from the narrow skirts that hampered her vigorous stride to the constricting corsets that inhibited her
breathing. Her long legs pulled taut against the material of her tight skirt, giving evidence to the fact that she spent more time in the field wearing trousers than mincing along in ballrooms. Her curly, unfashionably red hair was swept up and pinned relentlessly in place and still copper coils had pulled free and bounced against her throat. A sprinkling of cinnamon freckles adorned her nose, cheeks and the tops of her shoulders. She was a horror in the sight of every well-mannered woman in London. And yet, when she met his gaze, just before he set about opening the door to the laboratory, he seemed anything but offended.