Whitechapel Wagers 02 - Wanton Wager (7 page)

Wythorpe was even grander than Ada predicted, and it was bewitching to the eye with its many windows lit from within. The November night was cold and she could see a massive fireplace blazing through a immense window to the left of the front doors. It made the too large country house seem inviting, though she knew the Ashdownes would never offer her anything like hospitality.

Will led her to stand on the doorstep beside him, but she hung back, out of sight behind his tall frame, fearing her presence would get them turned away altogether.

After a brief wait, a gentleman dressed in the fine kit of a rich man’s servant opened the door.

“Good evening, my name is William Selsby. I realize the Ashdownes are not at home, but I wonder if I might speak with the butler or housekeeper here at Wythorpe.”

Ada peeked around Will’s arm to see the young man at the door raise his eyebrows and shoot Will an assessing gaze before replying.

“Lord Frederick Ashdowne and Lady Harriet Ashdowne are at home, sir. Shall I inform them you have come…to call?” The young man looked up at the night sky, as if to imply calling at such a late hour was akin to heresy.

Will glanced back at Ada with a questioning expression. Neither of them had expected the Ashdownes to be at home. Only days before Ada had confronted the siblings in their London townhouse. The brother and sister must have decamped shortly afterwards.

Ada shrugged, less helpful, perhaps, than Will wished her to be.

“Yes, if you would be so good. Thank you.”

Will pointed his cane ahead of him to indicate Ada should precede him into Wythrope’s massive entry hall, and both of them followed the young man into a drawing room to the right of a grand double staircase.

When the young man left them alone in the room, Will reached his hand out to Ada and she grasped it quickly, grateful for his strong, steady presence. If he was concerned about another confrontation with Ashdowne, it did not show on his face or in his gaze. Yet he seemed to sense the fear that made it difficult for her to stop shivering.

“You have nothing to fear from Ashdowne. We shall face him together.”

Ada drew closer to Will. After what they had shared on the train, she was finding it difficult to stay her hands from touching him at every opportunity. She turned her gaze up to his face and focused on his cool grey eyes. The emotion she saw there both ignited and soothed her.

He bent his head down and her mouth tingled, anticipating his kiss, but movement and sound beyond the drawing room door made them pause.

Ada heard women’s voices and laughter, their giggles high-pitched and harsh to her ears. One woman’s voice was louder, her words clear.

“No, this one’s the sitting room, I am certain. Is it not far too easy to get turned around with so many rooms?”

When the doorknob began to turn Ada pulled away from Will. Propriety dictated she had no right to touch him, no matter how she wished to. But he held her fast, allowing her to step away but not releasing her hand. His gaze never wavered from her face, even when the woman who stepped across the drawing room threshold cried out his name.

“William!”

Ada thought the woman’s laughter was shrill, but it was nothing to the sound of her scream. And she did truly scream Will’s name.

When both she and Will turned their heads toward the sound, Ada sensed Will’s shudder before he released her hand. His eyes had gone wide, as wide as eyes of the woman who stared at him from the doorway. She was a striking figure, tall and willowy, with auburn ringlets framing her face and cascading down around her shoulders.

“Is it truly you? I cannot believe it. They told me you would lose your leg. And your arm. They told me you might never walk again. Never be whole again.”

The woman rambled on as she approached them, her elegant gown fluttering around her. She walked right up to Will, as close as Ada stood to him, then closer, and reached her hand up toward his cheek. She paused just before touching him, as if she feared he was a phantasm.

“But you are whole. Whole and well and as impressive as ever.” She touched him then, her fingertips grazing his cheek and tracing a line toward his temple, and Ada saw him flinch. “You always did have the most beautiful eyes.”

The woman did not seem to notice Ada’s presence at all. Her whole focus was on Will’s face, but when she stepped one pace forward, as if she meant to do more—kiss him?—the woman who had followed her into the drawing room called out.

“Emilia!”

Her companion’s tone was harsh, scolding, and seemed to bring Emilia out of a kind of daze.

Watching Will, Ada thought he looked relieved Emilia had stopped touching him, stopped moving toward him. He reached for Ada’s hand again and she took his, stroking his skin and feeling the ridge of scars under her fingertips.

Ada whispered to him. “Who is that woman?”

“Come away, dear.” The woman who accompanied Emilia was tugging at her arm, trying to extract her from the scene.

But Emilia, now weeping and sniffling, continued to ramble, her words directed at Will.

“I never wished to marry him. Even with all his titles and houses and the castle… I would have married you.”

“My goodness, Emilia, I wondered where you had got to.”

Ada recognized the imperious tone of Lady Harriet, the woman who had lost her a position at the hospital, an appointment she had worked so hard to earn.

When Lady Harriet saw the assembled group and noted the tears streaming down Emilia’s face, she turned pale before directing an angry gaze at Ada and then Will.

“I don’t recall extending you an invitation, Captain Selsby. You or your…companion.” Lady Harriet turned her attention to the woman called Emilia. “Duchess, come away from all of this.”

Ada was stunned to hear that the woman who cried for Will was a duchess, even higher in rank than Lady Harriet, if Ada had her lords and ladies and titles right.

Will had not spoken to Emilia. Ada had barely seen him turn his gaze in the woman’s direction, but then he glanced at Emilia once before speaking calmly and quietly to Ada.

“We should depart. There is no help for us here.”

Relief swept over Ada. She wanted nothing more than to leave Wythorpe, to turn her back on the Ashdownes and the woman who watched Will with a tearful, longing gaze. She was curious about the woman but knew her questions were better left for another time.

He led her, drawing her along, her hand in his.

Lady Harriet spared them one last disdainful glance and they had almost made it to the threshold when Emilia broke away from the woman who embraced her and launched herself at Will.

He turned his body to shield Ada, and then craned his head back, offering his first words to the woman who was so affected by the sight of him.

“Miss Copley. Emilia. What was between us is in the past. Let us leave it there.”

He nodded, a curt gesture of forced politeness to Lady Harriet, and then strode out of the drawing room, across the entry hall, and out the doors of Wythorpe. He seemed to have forgotten that he even carried a cane and walked so quickly that Ada struggled to match his long strides.

He slowed his pace when they began ascending Wythorpe’s long drive toward the path that would lead them back to the village. The gentleman who had driven them from the train station to Wythorpe for a shilling was likely snugged up in his home, and Ada could not blame him. It had turned so cold their breaths puffed out in front of them as they walked.

Moonlight illuminated the road and the grim look on Will’s face. Ada wished to stop him, ask him about the encounter in the Ashdowne’s drawing room, but it was too chilly to stop on the road.

Will must have sensed her examining him, as he turned to her and offered her a grin that belied the sadness in his eyes.

“Are you all right to walk? It is at least a mile yet to the village inn. Here, take my coat.” Will started to remove his long woolen coat, but Ada stopped him.

“No, I am well. I quite enjoy walking.”

At Ada’s words, Will’s expression changed. He smiled and it carved dimples in his cheeks, lighting up his face. For a moment it was if the emotional scene at Wythorpe had never happened.

“Do you? In the dark? And the cold?”

His eyes glowed in the moonlight and Ada could not help but speak from her heart. “With you, yes. I suspect I would always enjoy a promenade with you.”

It sounded silly, but it seemed to please him. He stopped and lifted his arm, offering to enfold her in his coat. Ada’s height allowed her to fit neatly by his side, just under his outstretched arm, and he wrapped his great coat around both of them. They started walking again, awkwardly until they came to match each other’s pace, and Ada noticed that he hardly used his cane, barely touching it to the ground with each step.

They didn’t speak again until they reached the village tavern. Ada took a seat at a table near the fireplace and Will approached the publican. She heard him inquire about a meal and lodgings for the night.

The man behind the bar had a deep, blustery voice that carried across the confines of the cozy taproom. “Aye, I have a room to suit you and your fine lady there. Seat yourself before the fire and my missus will bring you both a bowl of mutton stew.”

Talk of food made Ada’s stomach rumble, and the mention of a shared room made other parts of her body tingle. Will could hardly let the innkeeper know they were unmarried without causing a good deal of fuss. Still the notion of spending an evening alone with him made her throat dry.

He approached the table and Ada felt suddenly nervous. She was eager to ask him about the woman at Wythorpe, and she yet she feared the answers. Despite his parting words to the woman, Ada could not help acknowledging there must have been feelings between them. The woman’s reaction had been extreme and her emotions seemingly heartfelt. Was Will’s heart as affected?

Before she could form a question, the innkeeper’s wife approached with a tray and settled two steaming bowls of stew, slices of bread and cheese, and a knob of butter before them. Her husband followed on her heels and placed a pint of ale before Will and a cup of tea in front of Ada.

As they ate Ada found herself wishing for a bit of ale herself, but she didn’t want to shock Will any more than she had with her behavior on the train.

“Would you care for a sip?”

He lifted his pint toward her, apparently reading her mind.

“I have my tea.”

“Every time you take a sip of your tea, Miss Hamilton, you stare longingly at my ale.”

“Do I, Captain Selsby?” Ada took a sip of tea, keeping her gaze on Will’s face, attempting to disprove his claim about her lust for his ale.

He took a generous gulp in response and Ada licked her lips, more affected by the movement of muscles across his throat than by thirst for his drink.

After a few moments of silence, she resolved to ask about the woman, but just as she opened her mouth to speak, Will took a breath as if he meant to express himself too. Ada closed her mouth and waited.

“I’ll return to Wythorpe in the morning.”

A burning ache started in the center of Ada’s chest. If he returned to Wythorpe, would he encounter the woman who preferred him over a duke? She was beautiful and elegant, and possessed wealth and a status so different from Ada’s.

“I shall try the servant’s entrance this time. The housekeeper, even the cook, will know if Beth has ever been at Wythorpe.”

Of course he would keep his focus on their true purpose for venturing to Derbyshire. Yet after being at Wythorpe, Ada couldn’t imagine Beth there. The girl would rarely even visit Ada at the Samaritan Hospital, insisting that the building was too imposing. Even if she had made her way to the Ashdowne’s estate, they would have turned her away. Would she have confided in anyone where she might go next?

Beyond the endless worry for her sister, the question of where she had gone, another question nagged at Ada’s mind. “What about Emilia?”

For what a seemed an endless pause, Will did not respond. He stared at his mostly uneaten bowl of stew, not meeting Ada’s gaze.

“Perhaps we should retire for the evening.”

He spoke the words before looking up at Ada. When he did, his gaze was stark, his eyes emotionless and his mouth a harsh line across his face. It was as if another man, one she had not come to know and care for over the previous days, sat staring back at her.

“All right.” Ada hadn’t meant the two words to come out so quietly, but his change in manner unsettled her.

He stood and started toward the stairs, not looking back to see if she followed. He strode quickly, his boot heels clicking on the pub’s weathered floorboards.

As Ada watched him walk away from her, a glint of gold caught her eye. His cane rested against the table. Not only was the new Will grim-faced, he had no discernable limp and apparently required no aid to help him walk.

Ada stood and took a deep breath. Whoever he had become, whatever had caused such a change in his demeanor, tonight she would be sharing lodgings with him.

If he had not heard her footsteps ascending the stairs behind him, Will would have turned back. He owed her an apology. He owed her more than that. She was the loveliest, strongest, and most desirable woman he had ever met. And he did desire her, had from the moment he first laid eyes on her. Yet the way he had met her, the circumstances of his visit to Whitechapel, even his loss of control on the train were not honorable. She deserved more—a proper courtship, marriage—and better than a broken man covered in scars.

As he stepped into the inn’s snug room, he spied a well-worn chair near the fireplace that would serve as his bed for the night. He approached it but could not sit. Frustration made comfort impossible, and as he heard Ada moving around in the room—laying her cloak aside and filling the wash basin with water—he ached with the desire to touch her, hold her, to offer an explanation for his rudeness in the taproom.

“I’m sorry, Ada.”

Speaking to her was difficult, but looking at her proved even more of a challenge. He feared what he might see in her gaze.

She sat at the foot of the bed, perched there, her back as ramrod straight as the night he had met her. Her eyes glittered like blue flames in the candlelight, and her red hair hung in lustrous waves around her shoulders. Will had never seen such a magnificent sight.

As he watched her, she reached down and brandished his cane.

“You left this downstairs.”

His cane was the least of his concerns, an unwelcome reminder of the man he had become.

“Perhaps you do not need it.” She cast it back down on the floor with her declaration.

He did not wish to examine how he relied on his cane, but he knew with staggering certainty that Ada Hamilton was what he needed, and his desire for her was like a hunger. The truth of it washed over him, tinged with joy and trepidation in equal measure.

“What I do need is to explain. May I?”

Will indicated the space next to her on the bed and she placed a hand there to indicate her invitation.

When he lowered himself to rest beside her, Will found the warmth and scent of her body a powerful balm. His frustration ebbed, replaced with the urge to confess his feelings, to make Ada Hamilton understand how much he wanted her. But first things first.

“I was betrothed to Emilia Copley, now the Duchess of Marbury, before I left for Afghanistan.”

Ada did not move or look at him as he spoke. She had fixed her gaze on the hearth and was so still she might have been holding her breath.

Will yearned to reach for her, but stayed his hand, eager to get his explanation regarding Emilia out so that he might get on to telling Ada of the sentiments weighing on his heart.

“When I returned, nearly eight years ago now, she refused to see me. I wrote to her, called at her family’s home, even sent word via a mutual friend. All to no avail. She never informed me she wished to break our engagement, though my intention was to release her from it. In fact, she had married the very same year I returned, just a few months before my arrival in London. But it was for the best. I was in no state to marry, and I was not certain I would ever be.”

Will grasped his cane and leaned on it gingerly to stand. Talk of the past, of Emilia’s rejection, sent a shooting pain down his leg. Standing seemed to ease it, but he missed the warmth of Ada’s body next to his.

Two strides brought him to the fireplace where a few logs still flickered, but the heat offered none of the satisfaction the woman behind him could provide with a single touch.

“She seemed quite affected by the sight of you.” Ada’s spoke quietly, as if the words were difficult to utter.

Emilia’s reaction had shocked him. Seeing her taught him how much he had forgotten about her, as if he was gazing on a stranger, not the woman he had known at all. Though graceful and elegant, nothing about her had stirred him, except to inspire a desire to escape. Her touch had repulsed him, and he had wanted nothing more than to push her hand away.

“Were you?”

Will feared he had missed something Ada had said. He turned to look at her, still sitting primly, her hands folded in her lap, on the edge of the bed.

“Was I?”

“Were you affected by seeing Emilia again?”

The sight of her had brought back memories of pain and regret, but nothing of whatever tenderness he had once felt toward her. Now, here with Ada, he realized he had never loved Emilia, and despite her emotional display, he suspected she had never loved him either. If she had, her love had been a thin, fragile thing, too delicate for the realities of a man marred by war.

“It roused memories.”

Ada seemed deflated by his answer. She tilted her head down a fraction, abandoning her stiff posture.

Will approached and resumed his place beside her. He could not resist anymore. He reached for her, grateful she did not pull away.

“Unpleasant memories, Ada. No finer feelings. Nothing like desire.”

He swallowed hard. The time had come to risk again.

“Nothing like what is between us.”

The wait between his words and her response seemed to stretch out, giving Will time to sift possibilities.

“What is between us?” Ada spoke the words as a question, and Will had only one answer.

“I love you, Ada. And if you’ll have me—“

ADA PRESSED HER lips to Will’s, cutting off his proposal. She heard the one word that echoed her own feelings, and her heart and soul reverberated with the sentiment. Love—he loved her and she loved him—and nothing more was needed.

Ada kissed him, offering every bit of her heart, her body, all that she was and hoped to be. No more hesitation. No more concern for decorum and propriety.

She slid her hands inside his jacket, unfastened the buttons of his waistcoat, and pushed the fine fabric aside. When she slipped a button on his shirt and slid her fingers underneath to touch his bare chest, he took a sharp breath and broke their kiss.

Will skimmed his lips over her flushed cheek, slid his mouth toward her ear, and began trailing kisses down her neck. His breath was hot on her skin, though the touch of his mouth on her body made Ada shiver.

When Will began working the buttons of her gown, she sighed in relief. Ada yearned to remove every barrier between them, and her clothing was suddenly a heavy, uncomfortable obstruction.

He peeled back her jacket and moved his hands to the frayed ribbon at the neck of her chemise. Much of her clothing was frayed, serviceable but often mended, and most of it well-worn and less than fashionable.

Ada reached up to halt his progress.

“I’m not a duchess.”

She heard him chuckle and saw the flash of his smile.

“For which I am most grateful.” He attempted to pull at the ribbon, but Ada held his hands fast.

“You are?”

“Mmm.” He pulled back and gazed into her eyes. “You see, I am not a duke. If you were bent on being a duchess, where would that leave us?”

Though his tone was teasing, Ada could not shake her concerns, fears that suddenly diluted the pleasure of his touch.

“Emilia is a duchess and she wishes to—“

Will moved his finger to her mouth and then replaced it with his lips. His kiss was deep, engaging all of her senses, eclipsing everything else. She could hardly recall the words she’d meant to say.

Will drew back a fraction and whispered to her. “She is better off where she is.” He kissed Ada again, nipping lightly at her lower lip. “And I am exactly where I wish to be.”

He set to work in earnest then, unwrapping her like a gift he’d been given. He momentarily abandoned the ribbon of her chemise to free her from her corset, then unhooked her skirt and slid it down her hips. He kissed her as he worked, alternating slow, languorous attention to her lips with hungry nips at her neck, sometimes lifting his head to trace the shell of her ear with his mouth.

Ada wanted him closer; she pulled and tugged at his clothing less skillfully and with far less patience.

Will seemed to catch her urgency and yanked at her petticoat so fiercely the sound of ripping fabric broke into their symphony of moans and heavy breathing.

He stilled and looked abashed. “Forgive me, love. I’ll buy you a dozen petticoats.”

The true regret in his eyes made her smile. Her petticoat had seen better days, but she knew she had never met a better man.

“Forget my petticoat and kiss me again.”

He did. He kissed her and released her from her petticoat and drawers and finally tackled the knotted ribbon of her chemise before slipping his hand inside and cupping her breast. Ada shuddered at the feel of his bare flesh on hers. He kneaded her body gently before tracing his fingertips in circles over the swell of her bosom, drawing ever smaller rings until he captured her firm peak.

She gasped into his mouth as he kissed her. Pushing back the fabric of his shirt, Ada relished the feel of his skin under her hands, the arch of muscle, the smooth curve of his back, even the ridge of scars on his shoulder and lower on the hard swell of his bicep.

It was his turn to pull back, tucking a finger under her chin and lifting her head so they met eye to eye.

“I recall you’re not a duchess, but you should know I am an imperfect man. The circumstances of our first meeting must have taught you that.”

Ada opened her mouth to speak but the look in his eyes, as if he needed this moment to express a painful truth, stilled her tongue.

“I am flawed. Scarred.” He indicated the scars on his arm. They surrounded a vicious looking gouge in his flesh, now faded, but still quite visible. “Damaged, I’m afraid. Inside and out.”

Ada gazed up at him, praying he could read the love she offered him.

“It is quite lucky for you, then.” She traced the pattern of his scars, gently, tenderly, as she spoke.

“Lucky?”

“That I am a nurse and not a duchess.”

He stood then, pulling her up against him.

“Lucky, indeed.”

She felt the insistent ridge of his manhood pressing against her thigh. Emboldened, she reached down to release the buttons of his trousers. When he’d shed the garment, there was no longer any barrier between them. For a moment, Ada merely reveled the in the feel of his body—hard planes and sharp angles—pressed against her curves.

When he led her to the bed and arched over her, covering the length of her body with his own, Ada could not restrain a purr of satisfaction from bubbling up. He felt so right, and their bodies fit together as if they had been made for this moment of joining.

Will kissed and touched her, his hands roving to stroke and knead her skin, stoking a burning ache inside of her.

She felt the press of him, heat and steel between her legs, and bucked against him, eager to ease the ache between her thighs. He responded, bending his head to capture her lips, his tongue plunging into the wet heat of her mouth, as his body rocked into her soft flesh.

Ada moaned into his mouth, not from pain, but from the extraordinary sense of fullness, wholeness, she felt as Will moved inside her. Close—their bodies were so close she felt his heartbeat against her own chest. He thrust with delicious purpose, slow and languid, as if he was savoring her inch by inch. But her need for him was not gentle. It burned her from the inside, from the point where their bodies joined, and ratcheted hotter with every stroke.

She lifted her leg, hooking it around his waist, and urged him deeper, wanting more of him, all of him.

His breath came in rapid gusts across her face as he plunged into her, watching her, his eyes filled with love and desire and the same hunger that fired every inch of her body. As she met his gaze, the hunger built, driving her toward the edge. She arched her back and a shudder built, melting her, consuming her. She reached out, gripping Will’s arm, scraping her fingers across his back, and cried out his name. He was still above her, watching her, moving inside her, seeming to revel in her release. Then he bent his head and captured the tight bud of her nipple in his mouth. Ada bucked again and he drove deep, moaning against her breast, as he shuddered with his own completion.

Will lifted his body off of hers and Ada turned to tuck herself against him. He reached down for the quilt folded near the foot of the bed and pulled it over them. A few embers still flickered in the fireplace, offering little warmth but painting the room in an amber glow. Ada glowed too. She felt warmth unfurling inside her body as her breathing steadied. Will’s heartbeat was steadying too. She felt it under the flat of her palm as it rested against his chest.

She tipped her head to kiss him, nuzzling his face, and enjoying the brush of stubble against her skin. Ada could not ever remember feeling such a sense of contentment. She was sated and the drowsiness of sleep made her eyes heavy lidded.

As her eyes began to flutter closed, Will’s fingers traced a line across her cheek, up toward her temple. He stroked her hair, combing his fingers through, giving her comfort and pleasure and driving her closer to sleep.

Thoughts of Beth assailed her the moment she closed her eyes. She had been so fixed on her own pleasure she had not spared her sister a thought for hours. Guilt and worry coalesced into questions, questions she had been asking for over a week. Where was she? Was she safe? How would they find her?