Matthias did not need the old specters of his haunted past to tell him that he was a fool. But there was no going back. He had told Horatia the truth that morning. He could not live a lie. Not with Imogen.
“What are you trying to say, my lord?” Imogen asked carefully.
“Do not be obtuse. I am called Cold-blooded Colchester for a reason. I earned that name, Imogen. I am not the kind, noble, high-minded man you believe me to be. I do not possess delicate sensibilities or refined emotions. I proved it when I forced you to read Lucy’s journal. A kind, thoughtful husband would not have blackmailed his wife into learning the truth about a woman she once called friend.”
Imogen studied him for an eternity with eyes that seemed to burn through his skin. Matthias braced himself for the endless night that waited to engulf him.
And then Imogen smiled. It was the smile of Anizamara herself. It glowed with the warmth of the sun.
“It strikes me that you have taken this whole thing much too seriously, Colchester,” Imogen said. “I suppose that is only to be expected of someone who possesses such a sensitive temperament.”
“Too seriously?” Matthias went swiftly around the desk and seized her by her arms. “What is the matter with you? What sort of mirror does it take to show you what I am?”
She reached up to touch his cheek with trembling fingers. “I have already explained that you and I do not always see the truth in the same light.”
His hands tightened on her arms. “What truth do you see when you look at me?”
“I see many truths. The most important of them all is that you and I are very much alike in some ways.”
“For God’s sake, we are opposites, not kindred spirits.”
“You once told me that we had passion and Zamar in common, if you will recall.”
Desperation and hope swept through him with the force of a wild, uncontrolled fire. “We share those things, but they do not make us soul mates. They do not make us alike.”
“Ah, now, that is where you are wrong, my lord.” Imogen’s eyes were brilliant with an unreadable emotion. “You are a man who prides himself on responding to logic, so let us consider this in a logical fashion. We shall consider passion first. It speaks for itself, does it not? I have never felt what I feel for you with any other man.”
“You have never lain with any other man. How can you know what you would feel with someone else?” He could barely speak the words. The image of Imogen in the arms of another man now that she had given herself to him was excruciatingly painful to contemplate.
“Hush, my lord.” Imogen closed his mouth with her fingertips. “I do not need to experience the act of love with another to know that what you and I share is quite unique. But enough on that point. Let us proceed to the subject of our shared interest in Zamar.”
“You think that our mutual interest in ancient Zamar binds us together in some grand, metaphysical manner? Madam, you have been reading too much Coleridge and Shelley. There are a hundred members of the Zamarian Society who share our interests. I assure you, I do not consider myself bound to any of them, metaphysically or otherwise. I do not give a bloody damn if I never see a single one of them again so long as I live.”
“Matthias, don’t you understand? It is not the study of Zamar that joins our spirits on the metaphysical plane. It is the fact that we both sought its secrets for the same reason.”
“What reason is that?”
Imogen stood on tiptoe and brushed her mouth against his. “Why, to escape the loneliness, of course.”
Matthias was bereft of speech. The shattering truth of her simple observation hit him with the force of dawn on the lost island of Zamar. Everything was suddenly illuminated in a light that was so spectacularly clear, it seemed unnatural.
He had used his quest as a means of holding his ghosts at bay. It had not occurred to him that Imogen might have been battling her own gray specters.
“Don’t you see?” Imogen persisted softly. “The search for the secrets of ancient Zamar filled up the empty places in our lives. It gave us passion and purpose and goals. What would we have done without Zamar?”
“Imogen—” He swallowed heavily.
“I know what Zamar is to you, Matthias, because it is the same thing to me. Indeed, I owe you more than I can ever repay because you did what I could not do. You discovered that lost island. Your researches and writings opened doors that I was in no position to open. You will never know what your explorations did for me. They brought a grand mystery to Upper Stickleford. I gloried in the search for solutions to the enigma of Zamar.”
Matthias finally found his voice. “It is not enough.”
She stilled in his grasp. “You said that it was enough, my lord. You said that it was a better basis for marriage than most couples had.”
“I meant that it is not enough to explain why you persist in crediting me with a nobility that I do not possess. Surely you did not marry me because I found ancient Zamar. What if Rutledge had returned after the second journey instead of me? What if he had opened the doors for you? Would you have married him?”
Imogen grimaced. “No, of course not. I’ve told you why I married you, Matthias. I love you.”
“You said that only because you thought I was in danger of getting myself killed in a duel. You were distraught that night. Emotional. Fearful. Agitated.”
“Nonsense.”
“And, God help me, I took advantage of your overwrought condition to coerce you into marriage.”
“How dare you, sir? You did no such thing. I was in full command of my faculties when I agreed to marry you. How many times must I explain that I have excellent nerves? I do not become overwrought. The fact is, I loved you then and I love you now.”
“But, Imogen—”
Her eyes narrowed. “You are the most stubborn man I have ever met in my life. I cannot believe that I am standing here arguing with you about my feelings for you. One would think that we were quarreling over some obscure reference in a Zamarian scroll.”
Matthias stared at her. “I find your love for me to be far more incomprehensible than any mystery of ancient Zamar.”
“Some truths one must simply accept because they are self-evident, my lord. Love is one of those truths. I have given you my love. Will you take it or reject it?”
Matthias looked into her clear blue-green eyes and saw no ghosts. “I may be stubborn, but I am not stupid. I accept your gift. God help me, it is more valuable than anything I discovered in the library of lost Zamar. I swear to you that I will cherish and protect it.”
She smiled a mysterious smile that held all the secrets of his past, present, and future. “I would not have given you my love if I had not believed that you would take excellent care of it.”
He wasted no more time attempting to comprehend the womanly secrets of her smile. He pulled her into his arms and crushed her mouth beneath his own.
Chapter 18
Imogen heard a rasping, inarticulate groan and realized it had come from Matthias’s soul. He swept her up into his arms and carried her to the dolphin sofa. His eyes met hers as he set her down amid the silken pillows. She saw the unmistakable gleam of desire mingled with an almost unendurable longing in his gaze.
She was both astounded and intrigued. “Matthias? What are you about? Surely you do not intend to … to make love to me here? Now?”
“I have often sat in that chair behind my desk and wondered how you would look lying naked here on this sofa. It was a form of self-inflicted torture.”
“Good heavens.”
“I have been waiting for an opportunity to make my fantasy a reality.” Matthias lowered himself down onto the cushions beside her and reached for her. “I believe today is the day.”
“But it is the middle of the afternoon and we are in the library.”
Matthias nibbled her earlobe as he began to unfasten her gown. “The ancient Zamarians often made love during the day.”
“They did?”
>
“Most assuredly.” Matthias loosened the bodice of her gown. “I have it on the best authority.”
“That would be your own authority, would it not? You are the foremost expert on the subject of ancient Zamar.”
“I am delighted to hear you admit it, I. A. Stone.” He bent his head to kiss the swell of one breast.
Sweet anticipation swirled inside Imogen. “Lovemaking in the afternoon. How very unusual. You did write that the Zamarians were an uninhibited lot.”
“For want of a better word.” He reached down to tug Imogen’s skirts up to her waist.
Delightful sensations bloomed inside Imogen. She felt light-headed, almost giddy. She had given Matthias her love and he had vowed to cherish it. Colchester was a man of his word. He was also, she told herself, a man who could learn how to love.
It was up to her to teach him.
At that moment he found the hot, moist place between her thighs with his powerful, elegant hands and all thought of the future fled temporarily from Imogen’s brain. She surrendered to his exotic Zamarian lovemaking techniques with joyous abandon. Matthias stroked her until she was breathless. Until she shivered in his arms. Until she twisted and turned in his embrace.
She fumbled with his breeches, freeing his rigid staff. He pushed himself between her fingers and shuddered with pleasure when she caressed him.
“I love you,” she whispered.
“Oh, God, Imogen.” Matthias rolled on top of her.
He drove himself into her, crushing her into the pillows. She clung to him, glorying in the weight and strength in him. Her fingers sank into the muscles of his shoulders.
When he found his release deep inside her, Imogen heard him whisper her name.
It was enough for now.
Lucy’s journal ended with unnerving abruptness. An ominous sense of foreboding descended on Imogen as she read the last few entries.
My dear, charming Alastair is the most handsome of men, but he shares the common weakness of his sex. He talks too much in bed and his chatter concerns naught but himself. He no doubt assumes that I did not notice his small slip of the tongue the other night. Perhaps he thinks that I did not comprehend the implications of what he said as he succumbed to the ennui that afflicts men in the aftermath of spent desire. He may have actually convinced himself that he did not say it aloud. But I am no fool. I heard and I understood. Alastair is my true love and I will force him to acknowledge that we are meant for each other. We shall go to Italy and live the golden, glorious life of lovers who are destined to be together.
I am so consumed with excitement that I can scarcely breathe. My hand shakes as I write these words. The Bow Street runner I hired to investigate Alastair’s small indiscretion has finally returned from the north. The information he has provided is more useful than I had dared to hope. My naughty Alastair is not at all what he professes to be. I am certain that he will do anything to keep the truth from Society. Anything. When I tell him the price of my silence, he will surely pay it. He may be angry at first, but when we are safe in Italy he will come to the realization that we are fated to be together for all eternity. He will forgive me eventually for what I am obliged to do. It is for his own good.
A chill went down Imogen’s spine as she closed the journal. She sat quietly for a long while, gazing unseeingly out the window of her bedchamber.
There was no question about it, she thought. Toward the end, Lucy had been living more and more in a strange world of her own creation. Reality and fantasy had blended to such an extent that she could no longer tell where one stopped and the other began. Her obsession with Alastair Drake had driven her beyond logic and reason. Perhaps Lucy had not been truly mad, but she certainly had not been entirely rational.
Imogen rose from her chair. She tucked Lucy’s journal under her arm and went slowly downstairs to find Matthias.
He was right where she had left him less than two hours earlier, seated behind his desk, deep into a Greek text. He looked up as she walked into the library.
“Imogen.” He started to smile and then he saw the journal. All hint of emotion disappeared from his ghost-gray eyes. He got slowly to his feet. “You have finished it.”
“Yes.”
“Well?” He watched her as she came to stand before him on the opposite side of the desk. “Was it worth the anguish, my dear?”
Imogen gave him a rueful smile. “I suspect the pain was worse for you than it was for me, Matthias.”
“Not bloody likely. Lucy was your friend, not mine.”
“Yes, but you have been tormenting yourself because you asked me to read her journal. The talons of self-inflicted guilt are extremely sharp, are they not, my lord?”
Matthias raised his brows. “I confess that I have not had much experience with them until recently. I cannot say that I care for the sensations they cause. Have mercy, madam. I may deserve the torment, but I trust that you will put me out of my misery as quickly as possible. Did you learn anything of importance, or was it all for naught?”
“I think I know why someone is after the journal. And possibly who is after it. Lucy discovered some dark secret about Alastair Drake.”
“Drake?” Matthias frowned. “What sort of secret?”
“I don’t know. She did not write it down in the journal. But it must have been something very important, because she hired a Bow Street runner to investigate it.”
“How very interesting,” Matthias said softly.
“Her last entry concerns the runner’s report. Whatever he told her seems to have confirmed some suspicion she held. She intended to use the information to blackmail Mr. Drake into taking her to Italy.”
“What a poor, benighted fool she must have been.” Matthias shook his head. “Anyone acquainted with him can see that Drake is a creature of London Society. He thrives on it. He would never willingly abandon Town life.”
Imogen gripped the journal very tightly. “I doubt that Lucy understood that. I certainly did not.”
Matthias shrugged and said nothing.
Imogen glowered at him. “If you make a single comment on the subject of my supposed naiveté, sir, I shall lose my temper.”
“I would not dream of saying a word.”
“Very wise of you, my lord.” Imogen cleared her throat. “In any event, as I told you, Lucy was not herself toward the end.”
“You may be right on that point. Surely no rational female would have concocted such a crazed plan. She gave no hint of this secret she discovered?”
“No.” Imogen blushed at the memory of what Lucy had written. “Only that it was something Mr. Drake accidentally allowed to slip during one of those curious periods of extreme exhaustion that appear to envelop members of the male sex following an encounter.”
“An encounter with what?” Matthias’s brow cleared. “Oh, I see. Drake didn’t have the brains to keep his mouth shut while his breeches were off, is that it?”
“That is a rather crude way of expressing it.”
“But accurate, you must admit.”
“I suppose so.” Imogen tapped her toe on the carpet. “You do realize the implications of this information, do you not, my lord?”
A keen, predatory intelligence glittered in Matthias’s eyes. “Of course. Your friend may, indeed, have been murdered. But the killer could easily have been Alastair Drake rather than Vanneck.”
“Yes.” Imogen sank slowly into a chair. She stared at the journal in her lap. “Mr. Drake might have concluded that he had to kill her in order to keep her from revealing his secret. What a strange notion. For three years I have assumed that Vanneck murdered Lucy. It is very difficult to imagine Mr. Drake as a killer.”
“I have no particular difficulty imagining it,” Matthias muttered. “But it’s that damned secret that interests me. I wonder if it would be possible to locate the runner Lucy hired three years ago. I would like to interview him.”
Imogen glanced up. “That is an excellent notion, Matthias.”
/> “I shall send a message to Bow Street immediately.” Matthias sat down and reached for a pen. “In the meantime, I believe I shall pay a visit to someone else who may have knowledge of this matter.”
“Surely you are not going to confront Mr. Drake? We do not have enough information yet.”
“Not Drake. That shining beacon of Zamarian scholarship, the Angel.”
“You intend to speak with Lady Lyndhurst?” Imogen frowned. “Why?”
“I feel certain that she is somehow connected to this matter.” Matthias finished his short note and put down the pen. “I think she was the one who attempted to get her hands on the journal this afternoon.”
“Quite possibly, my lord. She may know something more than we do.” Imogen sprang to her feet. “I shall accompany you.”
“No, you will not.” Matthias eyed her with determination. “You will wait here until I return.”
“I cannot allow you to go off by yourself in search of information, Matthias. Only consider the disastrous situation you got yourself into when you searched Vanneck’s house without my assistance. You could have been killed on that occasion.”
“I seriously doubt that Selena will attempt to murder me in her own drawing room.” Matthias was amused. “She’s a lady, not a ruffian from the stews. Women of her sort rely on their charms to achieve their goals.”
“Hmm. No offense, my lord, but I am not certain that we can depend upon your experience in the matter. My mother once told me that men frequently underestimate women.”
“I am always careful never to underestimate you, madam.”
Imogen wrinkled her nose. “Very well, then. Since you insist there is no danger, it follows that there is absolutely no reason I should not accompany you to Lady Lyndhurst’s, my lord.”
Matthias paused in the act of sealing the note. “I can see that I shall have to take more care with my logic in future.”
“Do not blame yourself, sir.” She cast a thoughtful glance at the Zamarian sofa. “After all, we arose from the conjugal couch only a short while ago. Perhaps you have not yet recovered fully from the debilitating ennui that strikes the male of the species in the aftermath of the amorous embrace.”