The King of Threadneedle Street (25 page)

Once her anger simmered to a low boil, her mind became absorbed in the sole function of feeling sensation. Her lips quit punishing and fell into a familiar, lovely rhythm with his. She had already tossed his necktie away, and with a resigned inward sigh for her weakness, she opened his shirt to satisfy the craving to feel his chest beneath her hands. It might have been her favorite thing to do with him; to feel him so alive, so distinctly masculine.

She stroked him from ribs to navel, as though creating him from clay.
Masterpiece
, she said with her hands. He laid his head back and exhaled through clenched teeth. Perhaps being touched this way meant for him what his kisses on the neck did to her — instant arousal.

“Hmm. Yes, Lisa. Touch me.” His eyes closed and his hands rested idly on her backside; she wondered if he noticed.

She brushed her lips first along his collar and shoulders, then kissed him everywhere her hands roamed. His breath seized, then he broke into a jagged rhythm that hitched every time she tried something new.

With her lips teasing the dimple where his neck met the bulky muscles of his shoulder, her hands skimmed over his abdomen again. It gave her a primitive sort of satisfaction to discover she could
taste
him; balsam, ink, clean starch, and the leathery scent of his skin she would never again take for granted.

Her fingers tickled the narrow trail of hair around his navel. Curious, she traced the dramatic lines there made by his hipbones.

Andrew seized her wrists and hauled her up against his chest, making a garbled sound of protest with his head tossed back. She listened to his panting breath and understood she had pushed him too far.

Mercy, what had she been thinking? A woman did not behave this way with a man and expect to escape the consequences. That made her a tease. One who depended on his self-control. Loads of foolishness, that.

Andrew moaned and thumped his head on the paneling in frustration. The driver slid the window open, thinking he had been summoned. Andrew dismissed him in terse German.

Her hands tingled under his tight grip. “Let me go, Drew.”

“No!” His nostrils flared as though he was in pain.

“I am sorry, I lost my mind.”

“Just keep still a moment.” She tugged against his grip on her wrists, and he sucked in a breath. “Alysia, I mean it! Do
not
move like that. Unless you want to be had on a carriage seat.”

Alysia shut her eyes, trying to banish the image she had just invited into her mind. Shameful, wanton daughter of a French courtesan; it sounded marvelous to her.

She dropped her head onto his shoulder. “Andrew, you are hurting me.”

He released her wrists and slumped in the seat. Cautiously she rubbed circles on his shoulders. It had the effect on him she hoped for; the tension in his body dissolved and his breathing returned to normal.

“Two years, nine months, sixteen days…”

“What?”

“I have burned for you.” His eyes still closed, he didn’t sound pleased. “Do you comprehend, even in some small way, what it is like for me?”

That should have been a declaration of war. Did she
comprehend
?

Instead of picking a fight, she turned her head to kiss him chastely on the cheek, then his temple.

“I am not cross with you. Only frustrated. It’s not your fault. Not exactly,” he modified.

“I know.”

She stroked his neck and tousled his hair. The only solution she could see, trapped somewhere between Vienna and Salzburg, was to put him to sleep. She rubbed his ears and brushed her fingertips on his face. He draped his arms around her and leaned back.

“Two and a half years of abstinence would make any fellow temperamental.”

“Yes, Andrew.”

“I know what you are doing,” he complained.

“Hmm.” She stroked the hair at the back of his neck to work the effect more quickly. He made a bass purring sound when she scraped her nails on his scalp.

“I don’t mind. Keep doing it.” After a few minutes he added, “I would rather ravish you.”

“Me too.”

Andrew chuckled, a lazy, content sound. He nestled his face in her hair and inhaled. “If Wil can do it, I can too,” he mumbled.

“Wil? Do what?”

“Wilhelm Montegue. Lord Devon. He not only left Sophia a virgin until after the wedding, but he was a virgin himself.”

Alysia blinked, both embarrassed and shocked. Perhaps Andrew was half asleep and didn’t know he was rambling, likely breaking confidences. “Unheard of.”

“He was thirty and four.”

“Remarkable.” Lord Devon? War hero, expert equestrian, passionate musician: chaste?

Andrew was no virgin, of course. If he hadn’t already admitted so himself, the papers told the whole world about his conquests. Alysia supposed two years of abstinence was a trial for Andrew, so she resisted commenting on his comparison.

“Only four months, eighteen days left.”

“Andrew, I can’t marry you.”

“Yes, you will,” he argued. “Meanwhile, love, do keep your hands away from my pirate.”

She stifled a giggle. “
Pirate
?”

He cracked one eye open. “Do you really want me to say it?”

“No!”

He settled deeper into the seat cushion. “You are
mine,
Lisa.”

She didn’t have the heart to argue aloud,
But you are not mine.

She watched forest shadows dance across the window shades in silhouette, and soon Andrew fell asleep. She shouldn’t be cooperating with his harebrained kidnapping. She certainly should not be lying in his lap, alone with him in a carriage. But in truth, her soul was delighted to see him. Then it was easier to admit she welcomed the chance to return to England.

But not with Andrew. Stubborn, wonderful man.

Chapter Sixteen

Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.

Hamlet,
William Shakespeare

Before dawn Andrew rolled her out of bed and to a foggy railway station in Salzburg. She recognized the border of France, and knew when they neared Burgundy and into Dijon by the change of air: mulchy, vinegar-honey, grapevine bloom borne on the wind sweeping from the vineyards.

She sat, rocking with the rhythm of the rail car, and sort of reading Wilkie Collins’
Poor Miss Finch
. At the moment, Andrew’s mind was far away, and his fidgeting distracted her. In the throes of his financial voodoo, he drummed his fingers and stared with narrowed eyes out the window. Occasionally he muttered to himself.

He stewed over something, she could tell, and it worried him. Absently he traced over her thumbnail then suddenly rifled through a Viennese newspaper, checked it against his illegible scrawls in the ledger, and circled a few lines emphatically. He sighed as though he had solved a mystery then returned to playing with her hands.

As Andrew sat deliberating, no doubt deciding the fate of nations, she thought on why she couldn’t seem to let him go. Every time he burst back into her life, she fell into his arms like a ridiculous Arthurian damsel. Just then, Andrew chased away her mulling as he leaned over and engaged her in a leisurely kiss, his lips soft and playful. It felt so much like
home,
her heart clenched and her eyes stung — he had no idea how he affected her.

“Austria is in trouble,” he said abruptly. “It is one of the reasons I came for you so soon.”

“In trouble? How?” Alysia gave a short laugh. “Other than a shortage of soap, I can see no impending disaster.” She saw he was serious and wiped the smirk from her face.

“Yes, you have seen it: Jews. The Austrians hate them.”

“The Jews are not precisely welcome at Almack’s in London, either.”

“Worse than that. There is a particular loathing and fear of wealthy Jews. They are being boycotted in every industry from banking to manufacturing to importing. There has been persecution for years, but now there is money behind it.”

“But the Emperor is eager to demonstrate his support of the Jews. He will—”

“That is the problem. Austrians blame the Jews for his favor and perceive it as a slight. In turn, they punish Jewish businessmen in the financial arena. Then what do you suppose will follow? Instability. The collapse of one group of investors and merchants will topple another.”

“So I understand,” Alysia answered as plainly as she could manage.

Andrew’s eyes flashed with amusement, catching her intent, but he showed no trace of distress or shame for his own debacle in the stock market.

“When?” She thought of the Emperor and the society she left behind in Vienna. Proud, exacting people. Sincere, loyal people. Impossible to imagine them in disarray.

“Now. It is happening already. Some crucial funds have folded, and it won’t be long until their entire economy implodes. I had to get you out. I don’t want you anywhere near irate revolutionaries.”

Alysia sat back and cooled her forehead with her hand. She believed him, absolutely. He was never wrong in such matters. It made her skin creep with chills. “You must warn them. Surely the Emperor will listen to you.”

“I did, Lisa. I made recommendations to your father, which he accepted. But events have already been set in motion.” He laughed humorlessly. “There are not many who would hear advice from me now, anyway. And I am right pleased with it!”

Thinking of the horde of irritating clerks who used to trail after him, she silently agreed.

He tugged on his bottom lip, staring intently out the window at neat rows of vineyards finally visible after their scent heralded proximity.

“What else is the matter?” she prompted, too impatient to wait out his trance.

“I don’t like being foiled.”

“So I have noticed.”

“I mean, your position in the royal court. This means your father, the Emperor, will not be able to provide the support I expected.”

She winced, not eager to throw the matter of her squandered fortune in his face. “I have enough commissions to keep myself busy into next year. Money will not be a problem.”

“You will
not
have to work to support yourself!”

She startled at the ire in his tone. “Drew, it’s all right. It’s not as though I am scrubbing floors.” She bit her tongue to keep from adding,
Or on my back.

“Please trust me, Lisa. And don’t speak like that. I meant your debut into London society. I had planned on your father escorting you to the annual ambassador’s banquet at Buckingham, to start with. Sadly, he will have his hands full.”

“Me? At Buckingham?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Talk about making a silk purse from a sow’s ear.”

He huffed, looking sincerely irked. “You look every bit the royal, and you know it, Alysia. Quit with the false modesty. It doesn’t become you.”

She arched a brow. “Pretty smiles could hardly repair my reputation.”

“Never underestimate their power. Besides, we will have to rely on them more now that we must find another way. Never fear, we still have influential friends on our side. All is not lost. Merely not as easy as it could have been.”

Again, his distressing assumption of their future together. Recognizing his statement as a lit fuse, she fell silent. So Andrew had counted on her semi-royal title to buy her entry into the beau monde? She thought he had sent her to Austria to get her away from Philip Cavendish. Not that it had worked; Philip had already made plans to visit Schönbrunn the next month. She would have to write and cancel. Several ladies at court eager to meet the famous
Pirate Slayer
would be sorely disappointed. If Andrew’s prediction proved correct, those ladies would have larger concerns.

****

At Le Havre port, Alysia eyed the steamer bound for Portsmouth and was surprised when Andrew led her to a triple-masted schooner instead, sleek and painted dark, with polished trim. As they approached it from the dock, Alysia identified it as a luxury merchant vessel, undoubtedly a smuggler’s ship — eight swivel guns, fore-and-aft rigged, and designed for speed.

She watched a crew of forty or so hefting barrels and crates, the officers hollering at sailors who worked with fast, sure hands to secure ropes to belaying pins. Andrew smiled as she finally noticed the lettering across the stern, in violet gilded with gold: “
Alysia.
” She gasped and stared with wide eyes. This expensive ship was named after her, and that could only mean one thing.

Before she could say a word, Andrew handed her along the ramp and ensconced himself with the captain. As they sailed out of the harbor, Andrew occupied Alysia with settling her in a cabin and checking to be sure all her things had arrived from Vienna. She took stock of her paints and brushes, her dresses and jewelry. Hours later, she finally had the opportunity to speak with him.

“So, you ruined yourself in the funds and turned to smuggling?”

He laughed. “
Smuggling,
in a legal sense, is a different matter to various people.”

Alysia scoffed and thumped him hard on the chest. She had only begun to muster a scolding when he clarified, “You needn’t worry. The law diverges from one country to the next, and one might play it to advantage. My business is entirely legitimate, I assure you.”

She overlooked the questionable matter of his quasi-smuggling. “Your
business?
What business?” She could barely speak with a tight throat. “I thought you lost everything.”

“Do you believe everything you read in the papers?”

“
You
seem to depend on them.”

“They serve their purpose. Do you want to know my great secret?” She suspected he meant to lead her away from the topic of his ruin. “I watch the money.”

She must have looked blank.

“Money is power, Lisa, and no one can do anything at all without it.”

She waited for him to explain what droves of eager clerks would have given their firstborn to hear confessed.

“Take the great conversion to the railway, for example. An empire isn’t born in a day. First there is a shift in demand for metal — iron, steel. A flux of contracts between investors and manufacturers. Land deals kept quiet, legislation introduced by members of Parliament who have connections to said investors… I gather information and translate it.”