What a Woman Desires (15 page)

Shaking his head, Thomas walked on, casting his gaze toward the buildings on the other side of the street. He’d barely taken more than a few steps when the harsh thump of another body knocking against him pushed the air from his lungs. He clutched the woman’s arms in a bid to stop her from toppling backward. “Whoa, pardon me, miss.”

The woman blushed scarlet and lifted a trembling hand to her hat, which had fallen askew atop her blond curls. “No, pardon me, sir. I wasn’t looking—”

“Me neither.” Thomas smiled. “Are you all right?”

She nodded. “Yes, thank you. I’m due back in the theater in an hour or so and wanted to rush home and back again before the curtain call.” She laughed. “I’m so clumsy. You were lucky I didn’t barge you straight over.” She glanced him up and down. “Then again, it would most likely take a carriage and four horses to knock someone like you off your feet.”

Thomas grinned. She was pretty as a picture and her brown eyes glinted with soft, feminine teasing. He released her and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Well, I’m glad we’re both still standing.” He nodded toward the open theater doors, his mind turning to Monica once more. “So you work here?”

“Yep, I sell oranges and the like.”

“So you don’t get to talk to the actors?”

She laughed. “Oh, yes. All the time. People like messages taken back and forth. The fetching and carrying earns me a few extra pennies. Are you thinking of taking in a show?”

He faced her, forcing his shoulders low so she didn’t sense the flow of tension streaming through his veins. This woman could be the perfect person to give him prior warning and information about Mr. Adam Lacey, actor extraordinaire. “Maybe. I got me a little crush on Miss Monica Danes. I’m mighty disappointed to see she’s not performing tonight.” He arched an eyebrow. “I don’t suppose you know her? Could get me a signed program from her?”

She playfully swatted his arm. “Cheeky. I know her very well, thank you very much, but the only way you’ll get a signed program is by buying one and then tossing me some coins to take it backstage.”

Thomas smiled. “Fair enough. So what’s she like?” He held out his hand. “I’m Thomas, by the way.”

She grinned and took his hand. “Tess.”

“Nice to meet you, Tess.”

She stared at his mouth, her blush deepening before she shifted her study to Monica’s picture on the wall beside her. “She’s wonderful. A true lady in every sense of the word.”

He followed her gaze. “She certainly is.”

“But not stuck-up in the way you might expect. She’s warm and friendly. Nice, kind, and funny. She and Mr. Lacey are as close as two people could be, and she helps anyone who needs it.”

“Are they lovers?” The question burst from Thomas’s mouth before he could stop it. Guilt and self-hatred twisted in his gut, but he had to know; had to be sure Monica was everything he knew her to be. Strong, independent, truthful, and the woman of his damn dreams.

Tess laughed. “No, never have been, never will be, if you ask me. Those two have one of those special relationships that are so hard to find between a man and woman. They’re deep and strong friends. They’d do anything for each other, but as far as I know . . .” She winked. “And I know
everything,
they’ve never even shared a kiss. They’re just there for each other, you know?”

Thomas nodded and took in a long breath through flared nostrils. “I heard she had a beau not so long ago. I assumed it was Mr. Lacey. Do you know who he was?”

Silence.

He turned.

Tess’s narrowed gaze bored into his. “What’s with all the questions about the men in Miss Danes’s life? You aren’t acting like you have a crush. You’re acting like you want to ravish her.”

Damn it.
Thomas forced a smile. “Chance would be a fine thing. I’m just interested. She’s a vision any man would be lucky to have on his arm. I pity the fool who let her get away, that’s all.”

Tess studied him a moment longer before exhaling and dropping her shoulders. “Well, for your information, her last
beau,
sodding Malcolm Baxter, didn’t deserve so much as to lick her boots, let alone call himself her lover. The man treated her like dirt. We all hate him.”

“We?”

She tilted her head toward the theater doors. “Every single person who works in that theater would gladly see the man hung on a streetlamp by his bollocks.”

Despite the ignited anger coursing through his blood, Thomas laughed. “Amen to that.”

Tess grinned, her eyes shining. “I have no idea what that man did to her, but it was bad, I know that. May he rot in prison for eternity.”

Thomas’s smile vanished. “He’s locked up?”

“For now. Yes.”

His heart thundered and his palms turned clammy. He clenched his fists inside his pockets. “Do you think he could get out sometime soon?”

She shrugged. “Who knows? I just hope Miss Danes stays away from Bath and in the country with her family. If Baxter’s ever released, the first person he’ll come looking for is her.”

Thomas trembled and pursed his lips tightly together for fear venom would spew from his tongue, revealing his love for Monica and hatred for Baxter.

“Anyway . . .” Tess sighed. “It was nice meeting you, Thomas. I’d better get moving if I’m going to make it back here before curtain’s up.” She arched her eyebrow. “Might I see you again?”

Thomas forced a smile. “You might indeed.”

She blushed. “I’ll look forward to it.”

As Tess brushed past him, Thomas stared at Monica’s smiling picture, his gut tightening. So Baxter was banged up, but for how long? Maybe this trip to Bath wasn’t so pointless after all. At least he now knew where Baxter languished. It was a start, if nothing else. Turning, he headed for the seedier side of the city where he would surely discover more about Baxter. He strode onward, his footsteps determined and his heart beating with barely controlled violence....

Monica shifted in her chair and glanced toward Mr. Baker’s closed office window. The heat was stifling. She lifted her fan and waved it in front of her face, cursing the constraint of her buttoned mourning dress. What she wouldn’t give to be wearing one of her low-cut, satin costumes from the theater.

“Shall we begin, Miss Danes?”

Monica snapped her gaze from the window and faced the elderly solicitor. She smiled an apology. “I’m so sorry. Of course.”

He nodded, his blue eyes somber before looking to Jane and finally their mother. He cleared his throat and dropped his gaze to the thin pile of papers in his hands. Monica sat rigid in the hard chair, perspiration itching at her temples as Mr. Baker drawled the legal words aloud. Tension ebbed and flowed through her body, and her heart beat faster as he read each necessary paragraph.

“And so we get to the distribution of assets.” He laid the top sheet on his desk and straightened the remaining sheets. “Mrs. Danes, your husband leaves you the entire monetary assets in his bank accounts, both here in Bath and in Bristol. In addition, he bequeaths you all the furnishings, ornaments, and trinkets you wish to become yours from Marksville House.”

Unexpected tears clogged Monica’s throat as she stared at her mother’s stricken and frozen face. For all of Monica’s issues with her parents, she’d never wished to see the pain etched so clearly on her mother’s increasingly slacken features. With each day that passed, her mother seemed to be aging in front of Monica’s eyes. Her pallor grew more sallow and her gaze more and more glazed. It was as though she were slowly dying right in front of her daughters and there was nothing she or Jane could do to prevent it.

Monica blinked back tears as sadness rose like a bubble and caught painfully behind her rib cage.

“Mama?” Jane squeezed their mother’s hands, clenched tightly together in her lap. “Do you understand what Mr. Baker is telling you? Papa has left all his money to you. You still have means to continue living as you have been.” Jane glanced at Monica before looking at their mother once more. “Mama?”

Monica was about to rise from her chair to kneel at her mother’s feet when she spoke. “I have enough money if I need to leave my daughters?”

Monica frowned and exchanged a quick look with Jane. Her sister touched her fingers to their mother’s chin and turned her face. “You won’t have to leave us, Mama. Monica and I will be here for you. Always.”

“Of course we will.” Monica stood and went to her mother’s side. She stole an arm across her stiffly set shoulders. Tears burned Monica’s eyes to feel the bones beneath her mother’s dress, evidence she’d lost and continued to lose weight since her husband had passed. “There’s no need to talk or worry about such things.”

Her mother looked up, her eyes shining with tears. “But what of the house? He says nothing of the house.”

Mr. Baker coughed and Monica turned. “Yes, Mr. Baker?”

“The house . . . and land has been left to you, Miss Danes.”

Monica stiffened and swallowed against the sudden dryness in her mouth. “Surely you mean to say both me and my sister have been left the estate?”

He shook his head, his cheeks darkening. “Just you, Miss Danes. He has bequeathed you, Miss Danes”—he looked to Jane—“his apartment here in the center of Bath.”

Monica’s breath caught and she teetered back on her heels, her fingers gripping her mother’s shoulder as she darted her gaze to Jane’s. Their father’s Bath apartment was his domain, the one place no female member of her family had ever been allowed to enter . . . and now he gave it to Jane? It made no sense.

Jane stared back, her green eyes wide with shock. “He can’t . . .”

Anger shot through Monica, turning her face and body hot with frustration. “Oh, yes, he could.” She snatched her hand from her mother’s shoulder and paced around in a circle before coming to a stop. She trembled. “Don’t you see why he’s done this?” She huffed out a laugh. “It’s his perfect ending. He’s swapped our positions. He’s given you a permanent residence here in the city I love, and given me your home that you have never wanted to leave. Can’t you hear him laughing, Jane?”

Mr. Baker rose to his feet. “Miss Danes—”

“What is it you wish to say to me, Mr. Baker? Ask me to sit down? Accept this? Accept my father is having the last laugh at his daughters’ expense?” She glared. “Not once did that man think of me or Jane when he was alive. Not once. Now it seems he wishes to continue his tyranny from the grave.”

Mr. Baker’s face reddened and he looked to her mother. Monica blinked as guilt enveloped her. Now was not the time to rant about her father’s malice. There would undoubtedly be a million other moments when she could freely indulge without coating her mother’s fondness for her husband in distaste.

She met her mother’s gaze. Her eyes were bright with pleasure. “Your father is laughing, isn’t he? I hear him too.” She looked to Mr. Baker. “Might he not join us, Mr. Baker? Do you have him busy at work?”

The solicitor frowned. “Mrs. Danes, I do not understand what you are—”

Monica clenched her fists and briefly closed her eyes before storming forward. She took her mother’s elbow, gently drawing her to her feet. “We are ready to leave, Mama.” She looked to Mr. Baker. “I assume there is nothing else in those pages of nonsense my father left in your care? Nothing else to separate and destroy the weakened bonds of his family?”

“Well, no. If you have any questions—”

“I’ll find the answers myself.” She held out her hand. “I will take the papers, if you please. I promise you they will be guarded with my life. After all, my father most assuredly only wanted what was best for us.”

Mr. Baker’s hands trembled as he gathered the papers and placed them in Monica’s hand. “You are a very wealthy woman, Miss Danes. I hope you realize that and do well with your good fortune.”

Monica smiled and raised her eyebrows. “My good fortune? How very funny you are.” She nodded. “Thank you. We bid you good day.”

Steering her mother toward the door, Monica marched forward with her head held high and her body shaking. She daren’t look at her mother for fear of what she might see in her eyes. Her ensuing silence about her husband spoke of her forgetfulness once more, and Monica lacked the courage to ask what her mother thought. Jane’s footsteps echoed behind her as Monica led the way along the narrow corridor and out onto the street.

Once outside, she breathed in the Bath air with fervor. She inhaled the smells deep into her body where she didn’t doubt they’d linger, teasing, tormenting, and denying her the life she wanted. She slowly counted to ten in an effort to calm her racing heart and faced Jane. “We’ll go back to the hotel to freshen up, and then I wish to pay a visit to a very close friend of mine.”

Jane glanced at their mother standing mute between them, her glazed gaze focused on the passing people and horses on the street. Jane turned. “And what I am to do? Stay in the hotel with Mama and Stephanie? Or do you intend taking Stephanie with you and punishing me by leaving me alone to care for Mama because Papa has given me a home I didn’t ask for?”

Her sister’s glare drove icy-cold fingertips into Monica’s temples. “Of course not.”

“Then I am to come with you?”

“Yes.”

Their gazes locked as the seconds beat out between them. Jane’s breasts rose and fell with each of her harried breaths. “Good, because you are not the only one affected by what Papa has done. We all are, and it would be just for you to remember that.”

The insinuation was as clear as if Jane had slapped Monica’s cheek.
This is not just about you. Your temper belies your selfishness. This is about you, me, Mama, the tenants, Mrs. Seton, Jeannie . . . and Thomas.
Monica squeezed her eyes shut.
Thomas. Always Thomas, Thomas, Thomas . . .

She opened her eyes. “I do remember that. I’ll remember every day of my life, but for tonight I want to remember and live every second that may not be mine again for a very long time.”

Jane’s cheeks flushed. “Fine, then we’ll return to the hotel and get Mama comfortable.” She pulled their mother close, lifted onto her toes, and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “All will be well, Mama. Come, we’ll walk back in this glorious sunshine.”

Together, they descended the steps from Mr. Baker’s office onto the pavement. Monica’s mind whirled with the reality of their circumstances. What had her father been thinking by leaving such a cruel legacy? His wife had no home to call her own, only money, and his daughters each had a home they didn’t want. His intentions reeked of cruelty . . . yet she couldn’t help but feel somewhere, amidst the pain clutching her heart, her father had given his daughters his final and most important lesson.

 

What in God’s name am I doing?
Thomas flitted his gaze from the huge fireplace, complete with enough foliage to hide a lion, to the sideboard containing enough greenery to feed an army of locusts. If this was what it meant to be wealthy in the city, he could think of nothing he wanted less.

The décor in Adam Lacey’s house was as bizarre as the costume the man had been wearing on the billboard outside the theater.

Thomas looked down at his hat and turned it around in his hands. He’d yet to ask Monica what had happened at the solicitor’s office, but sensed something had gone very wrong, not just for her, but the entire family. Foreboding rippled through him, just as it had when he’d first set eyes on Monica outside the hotel forty minutes beforehand and saw the look of pure anger on her face.

He suspected whatever she’d been told by the solicitor had ignited a motivation inside her that would undoubtedly singe anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in its path.

Lifting his head, he looked to Monica and Jane where they sat on the settee. Monica stared back at him, her cheeks flushed and her eyes wide with an almost maniacal gleam.
God help us if that look in her eye is anything to hold measure by.

The severity of her mourning clothes added to the aura of wildness emanating from her. She was a woman on the edge and he sensed it was only a matter of time before he, and maybe everyone else in the room, were made aware of what was rushing through her body and intelligent mind.

He widened his gaze in question, but she merely shook her head before staring toward the closed parlor door. Frustration pinched hot at Thomas’s cheeks. He looked to the mirror above the fireplace in an effort to tamp down his desire for her, as well as the curiosity burning inside him.

Despite the void between him and Monica, the sexual tension still lingered and he longed to have her. Even for a single time. To see her head thrown back in abandon and her clothes torn from her body would surely satisfy his need to know if he could make this woman discard her independence whenever she was with him.

From her bright blue eyes to her glossy black hair pinned in such a way to conform to decency, Thomas wanted her. For the love of God, just to see that glorious mane of hair loose and free over her shoulders and naked breasts . . .

His cock hardened and shame infused him. Didn’t he have more to worry about as far as Monica was concerned than laying with her?

His findings from talking to the right people that afternoon had left little doubt of Baxter seeing Bath’s streets as a free man anytime soon. Yet, Thomas’s brief satisfaction all too quickly gave way to possession, and reinforced his need to make love to Monica how she deserved—with love, attention, and heart-wrenching desire.

She deserved a man’s passionate love above all else; he sensed she would reciprocate his caresses with an ardent intensity that would serve to send him near mad with lust. Her kiss in the garden had been just a sliver of the ardor he suspected her capable of.

The parlor door opened and Adam Lacey strode in, his gaze immediately falling on Monica as though no one else were in the room. “Monica. It’s so good to see you.”

Monica leaped from the settee and Thomas stiffened. Her previous, seemingly permanent frown was obliterated by her wide smile and shining eyes. She exhaled. “Adam.”

She stepped into Lacey’s open arms and they embraced. Thomas clenched his jaw as displaced jealousy rippled through him to see how easily Monica laid her head on her costar’s shoulder, her eyes closing. He shouldn’t care it couldn’t be him who comforted her that way . . . as long as someone had the right to hold her, nothing else should matter.

Thomas turned to the woman who had followed Lacey into the room. Her gaze met his and she smiled. Thomas straightened his shoulders. There could be no mistaking the wisdom in her eyes. Had his feelings for Monica been etched on his face? The woman came toward him, her hand outstretched. “Laura Lacey, nice to meet you.”

There was no denying the astounding beauty of Lacey’s wife. Her violet eyes were astonishing, her distinct South West accent interesting. This was not a woman born to the high life or paid education, yet here she was married to one of Bath’s most admired actors. Thomas dipped a shallow bow and took her hand, his head whirling with questions of Mr. and Mrs. Lacey’s story. “Thomas Ashby, ma’am.”

She smiled widely, the teasing in her eyes still bright. “Well, nice to meet you, Mr. Ashby. We had no idea Monica would go away for a few days and return with such a handsome beau.”

Monica laughed. “Thomas is . . . sorry, was, my father’s groom, Laura. Stop teasing him so.”

“I’m sure Mr. Ashby can shoulder my ribbing as much as the next man. Isn’t that right, Mr. Ashby?”

Thomas dragged his glare from Monica and forced a smile. “Indeed, I can, Mrs. Lacey.”

She frowned. “Laura, please. I’m not one for standing on ceremony, am I, Adam?”

Lacey laughed and released Monica’s hand and came toward Thomas. “My wife can’t abide airs and graces, Mr. Ashby. I hope you feel the same.” He offered his hand.