Vanity (7 page)

“I’d prefer to sleep in the chair,” she said, aware of her flaming cheeks.

“That’s your privilege, of course,” he said. “But you’ll be cold once the fire dies down. I don’t believe there are sufficient logs to keep it in all night.”

“I’ll be warm enough, thank you,” she replied stiffly. “If you don’t mind letting me have a pillow and the coverlet, I shall be perfectly comfortable.”

He shrugged, pulled off the coverlet, and tossed it over to her. A pillow followed. Then, without another word, he tossed off his dressing gown. He must have removed his drawers behind the screen. For a breathtaking second his body glimmered, naked and powerful in the dim light, and then he’d climbed into bed. He leaned over and blew out the bedside candle, and Octavia was left in the firelight.

She dragged the coverlet over her, thumped the pillow behind her head, and tried to settle to sleep. But it was impossible. That curious unfocused excitement grew, together with the tingling in her belly that soon spread to her fingers and toes. But perhaps it wasn’t unfocused. Perhaps it had everything to do with the last few minutes, with what she’d seen, with the knowledge of that naked male body a
few feet from her. She gazed into the fire, trying to calm herself with the ruddy glow and the deep-blue undertones.

But as the fire died, the room grew colder and darker, and still she was wide awake. Wide awake and freezing. So cold that deep shudders racked her body and all she could hear was the wind whistling around the now silent inn, rattling the ill-fitting panes.

She looked toward the bed. The highwayman was a humped shape at one edge, sleeping tidily and deeply, judging by the steady, rhythmic breathing. If she put the pillow down the middle of the bed, separating them, surely she could creep in without disturbing him and sleep on the farthest edge. She had to get warm. Even if she didn’t sleep, she had to get warm if she wasn’t to be frozen solid by morning.

Softly, she got up, dragging the coverlet around her shoulders, her feet like blocks of ice on the hard wooden floor. She approached the bed. Barely breathing she lifted the feather quilt and pushed her pillow into the middle. The sleeper made no movement. Still holding her breath, she climbed up onto the high mattress and slid beneath the quilt, where she lay shivering, trying desperately to keep still but unable to control the violent tremors of her body, which seemed to rock the bed.

Gradually, however, she began to warm up. She was acutely conscious of the form in the bed beside her, weighing down the mattress so she had to concentrate on not rolling down into the valley that separated them. But now she was hot, the heavy velvet robe twisted around and beneath her in cumbersome folds that took on the consistency of hardwood pressing into her flesh. Perspiration gathered between her breasts, trickled down from her armpits. And now those strange currents of restless excitement swirled more vigorously in her veins, so that she could hardly keep her feet still, and strange half-formed thoughts kept drifting into her mind, then sliding out again before she could grasp them.

The robe had become an instrument of torture, enclosing her so she could barely breathe, setting her skin on fire.
She wriggled out of it, forgetting in her desperate urgency to move only discreetly. The robe fell to the floor beside the bed, and she heaved a sigh of relief, conscious now of her body beneath the thin shift.

The strange drifting thoughts increased, twining like thick lazy serpents in her head, more sensations than thoughts, and her body was suffused in a deep, dreamy languor that overlaid the urgent restlessness without banishing it. She was conscious of her body in a way she’d never known before. Her hands moved over the shape of herself, startled to discover that her nipples were hard, lifting to her touch. Her skin was warm and tingling as she passed her hands over her belly, feeling the sharp points of her hipbones. Her thighs parted as her hand slipped between them, feeling the moistness of her core, a strange sensitivity; and the aching restlessness rushed upon her anew.

She stroked herself, slipping slowly into a rich and sensual dreamland as the warmth crept over her and her body sank deeper into the feather bed. The twisting images in her head lost definition, and her eyes looked upon a soft, pulsating landscape without form or substance that drew her onward into the enticing glow.

She dreamed of a mouth on hers, of a kiss so light and delicate, it barely stirred the air. She dreamed that her hands were moving over a warm, powerful male body and she was inhaling the scent of skin, a scent that she knew but that was nonetheless unfamiliar and didn’t belong to herself. She dreamed that her own skin now touched the skin of the body beside her, that fingers caressed the small of her back, touched her breasts, swept down her form in long strokes that soothed the urgent restlessness but replaced it with a clearer sense of need. She dreamed her lips were parted for a different kiss, one that took driving possession of her mouth; she heard little feline cries in the humid sensual darkness of the deep enclosing feather mattress, and she dreamed they were her own. She dreamed a joyous fulfillment that seeped into every cell of her body, that made her soul sing in wonder. She dreamed that every part of her
body was lost in this other shape, that her limbs were joined with his, that as she dipped into the darkness of oblivion and surfaced again into the warm glowing light of her dreamworld, she was entwined with this other body, that her eyes were in her fingers and in her skin where it touched his. She dreamed the moments of joy again, the long slow sleepy slide into infinite pleasure, before she slipped again into the dim green glowing light of the sleep-filled trance.

The dream was with her all night, her body moving through the strange landscape, ever new and more glorious waves of pleasure breaking over her as she adapted herself with such wonderful ease to the large, powerful frame that both took from her in possession and gifted her with itself.

And when she awoke, her eyes opened onto washed-out sunshine, and she was alone.

But the dream was still with her. Its threads still twined beneath her skin, its images, blurred now, still inhabited her mind. She lay burrowed in the feather mattress, bewildered and disoriented, conscious of a sense of loss as she tried to recapture the defined images of the night.

Her hands moved over her body. She was naked. But she had not gone naked to bed. The disorientation faded, but her confusion increased as the room took shape in the early-morning light and memory returned.

She was naked and heir skin felt different: used, marked, in some strange and frightening way. There was a soreness between her legs—not a bad soreness, more a kind of warm and satisfied ache. Tentatively, she touched herself. There was a stickiness, and when she drew her hand away, she saw the smear of blood on her fingers.

Octavia kicked aside the covers and sat up. There was blood on the sheet and on the inside of her thighs … not much blood and it wasn’t flowing anymore.

It was three weeks before her next monthly terms. She lay down again, pulling the cover to her chin, and stared up at the chintz tester. The highwayman had raped her.

But he hadn’t. Nothing had happened that hadn’t brought her the most exquisite pleasure. She had believed
herself to be dreaming, but the evidence was overwhelmingly in favor of reality.

And reality meant consequences. She might have conceived a child.
How had it happened? How could such a thing have happened? What had happened to her that had allowed such a thing to happen?

Slowly, Octavia sat up again and took stock. She was alone in the room. The fire now burned brightly, and someone had scraped the snow from the outside of the window so that a feeble ray of sunlight fell across the wooden floor.

Where was the highwayman? Her dream lover? If she hadn’t been so devastated, Octavia could almost have laughed at herself for such whimsical folly.
What had happened to her? What had taken her into that fantastic world?

Her eyes fell on her clothes, neatly arranged over the chair by the fire. Her boots had been polished. At the end of the bed were draped her shift and the velvet robe.

“Lord of hell!” she muttered. There was nothing dreamlike about this morning.

The door opened. A booted foot stepped into the room. The door closed. Each sound unnaturally loud. Dreams and fantasy trances vanished into the woodwork.

Octavia turned her head warily. The highwayman walked over to the bed. Except that it wasn’t the highwayman. Oh, it was the man of her night, but she no longer looked upon the plainly dressed gentleman of the previous day.

“Who are you?” Her voice came out as a whisper. The highwayman was dressed in a suit of turquoise velvet, rich Mechlin lace edging his shirtsleeves, his hair concealed beneath a high-dressed powdered wig, a black solitaire at his neck, tied in a bow around his starched white stock. He wore a sword and jeweled buckles on his red-heeled shoes, but his smile was straight out of the night.

“At this moment, Miss Morgan, Lord Rupert Warwick is at your service.” He bowed with a deep flourish, and as his hand moved through the ray of sunlight, the amethyst on his finger sparked fire.

Octavia’s voice shook with angry confusion, banishing the lingering memories of joy. “So yesterday you were Lord Nick, the highwayman, and today you’re Lord Rupert Warwick, the courtier. Do you have other identities, sir? Or have I met all of you?”

The slate-gray eyes glittered and his voice was lightly humorous. “Not quite, my dear. But all those you need to know … at least for now.”

“You gave me your word you would not ravish me.”

“I did not ravish you.” His eyes met hers steadily.

“But I may now be with child,” she said in a low voice, accepting his flat denial by default.

“No, Octavia, you need have no fear of that.” He sat on the bed beside her, reaching for her hand, his expression gentle, his eyes reassuring. “I don’t know what you know of such things, but there is a device that a man may use. It’s known as a condom.”

“You used such a thing?” She stared at him in disbelief, unable to imagine how in that entwined dream such a practical, wide-awake consideration could have come to him.

He nodded. “I would not hurt you, my dear. You must believe that.”

“But how did it happen? I don’t understand how it happened.”

“You invited me,” he said simply.

Had she? It seemed impossible … and yet she had been willing. More than willing.

“I don’t understand anything,” she said helplessly.

“There’s nothing to understand. We enjoyed each other last night as men and women do. And now you will get up, dress, break your fast, and I will take you home to your father.”

And it would be over. She would forget all about it. All about that tangling of limbs in limbo.

Perhaps.

S
omeone had mended the torn lace of her fichu—Tabitha, Octavia presumed. It was difficult to imagine the hard-eyed, unfriendly Bessie performing such a service.

She dressed before the fire in the deserted bedchamber. The highwayman had said that he would await her in the parlor where breakfast was ready and had left her to herself. She was grateful for this unusual consideration from a man who hitherto had shown little or no recognition of a need for personal privacy. Indeed, after such a night of intimacy, she’d expected him to offer to lace her corset at the very least.

Octavia felt very peculiar as she retied the leather pouch around her waist, its weight a comforting reality. She was confused, dismayed, and yet curiously excited, as if she’d crossed some boundary and entered uncharted territory. Her body was thrumming and her skin felt acutely sensitive. Surely she must look different after such a night. She gazed at her image in the spotted cheval glass on the dresser, but only her familiar face stared back at her. There was a deeper
glow
to her skin, perhaps; maybe her eyes seemed larger; and her hair was springing out around her
face in a dark unruly halo as if it had been vigorously combed with a thousand fingers.

She took up the comb on the dresser and dragged it through the tangling waves. Her hairpins were still in the parlor where she’d taken them out to dry her hair yesterday afternoon. Just yesterday!

Octavia sat down abruptly, staring into the fire, trying to connect herself with the person she’d been yesterday … before she’d stolen the highwayman’s watch. She
was
different this morning, but time would distance the memories of that fantastic dream. She would return to Shoreditch, to the drear poky lodgings above the chandler’s, to her father’s self-obsessed world of the mind, to the daily struggle to maintain some sense of pride as she negotiated with the pawnbroker and the grocer, the butcher and the baker, and darned her stockings and mended her gowns, and went out on the streets to risk her neck whenever there was nothing left to pawn.

She jumped as the door suddenly banged open to admit Bessie, who stood with arms folded, leaning against the doorjamb. “There’s some of us as ’as work to do,” she announced. “Can’t lie abed all day like some bleedin’ lady muck. You goin’ to get yer breakfast, or shall it be cleared away?”