“I imagine a viscount can do so as well,” she said hesitantly.
“Of course.” He paused. “But it’s a position best suited to an autocrat, I think.” He cocked a brow. “Or a collector, or a sybarite. I was never very fond of the gilded cage.”
A gilded cage sounded much nicer than a soldier’s barracks, or a windowless room at a boardinghouse. “You seem to inhabit it easily enough.”
He acknowledged her cynical tone with a brief bow of his head. “Indeed. I’m an excellent fraud.”
A thought struck her. They were both living lives that rightfully had belonged to their siblings. “Then so am I,” she said.
He lifted a brow. “How are you a fraud?”
“Everleigh Girls aren’t meant to pick pockets.”
“Nor are viscounts,” he said with a wolfish grin. “But I put one over on you, didn’t I?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Luck.”
“So you’ll tell yourself.”
“If you want to do good, why haven’t you taken your seat in Parliament?”
“You have been reading about me.” He sat back, eyeing her. “Do I intrigue you, Miss Marshall?”
Overmuch. “Know thy enemy,” she said—a timely reminder to herself. Enemy.
“Are we enemies, then? It feels otherwise.”
She caught her breath. He’d admitted to this odd rapport, brought it into the open. It thrilled and frightened her at once. He was studying her with his beautiful eyes, irises like honey, his gaze frank, challenging: Be as brave. Admit it.
“We should be enemies.” God help her, that would be so much wiser.
“Or allies,” he said. “Our goal, after all, is the same.”
“You’re my blackmailer.”
“And you’re a thief. But that hardly outweighs your other qualities. Intelligence. Wit. Self-possession. In the field, Miss Marshall, I would want you at my back.”
She took a hard breath through her nose. “I thank you for the flattery—”
“That isn’t flattery,” he said. “Flattery is more poetic. If I wanted to flatter you, I would remark on your beauty. Your thick, dark hair. The slope of your shoulders. The color of your eyes. Last night at dusk, the sky reminded me of you.” He gave her a half smile. “And now you look very wary. Do you imagine me a liar? Surely you’ve glanced in a mirror, once or twice.”
She groped for good sense. “Miss Everleigh is far more beautiful.”
“Miss Everleigh is many things,” he said. “Lovely, intelligent, learned. You’re all of those things. And you’re fascinating.”
She stood, tea sloshing over her fingers. “I don’t think—”
“Have I frightened you?” He rose, towering over her. “That was hardly my intention. Merely to say—I can think of many grounds for friendship between us.”
She spoke very faintly, staring at his chest. “It’s not friendship you’re discussing, though.”
“It could be. Let me take you to bed. I’ll show you there what I mean.”
“Stop asking.”
“All right.” He took the cup from her hand. “I’ll stop asking,” he said gently, and bent to kiss her.
His kiss was just as devastating as she’d remembered. No—it was more. His mouth was warm, his tongue sure and insistent, and this time she did not hesitate before opening her mouth. He made a growling noise as he licked into her. Her hands closed around his coat, digging through the thick layers of fabric until she felt the flex of muscle in his back. He was built like an animal, a great strapping beast, brutal strength, a lion’s proportions.
Small bites. She wanted to be eaten.
He lifted her by the waist, swallowing her gasp. The world tilted; he carried her down into the wing chair, so she sprawled across his lap, only the iron banding of his arms to support her.
And still he kissed her—a slow, deep tangle of tongues, frankly carnal, nothing polite. She grasped his face, felt across his cheek, the sharpness of his cheekbone, the hard bone of his jaw. His stubble scratched her palm; he smelled like starched cotton and soap. She tilted back her head so his lips could reach her throat.
With a growl, he licked down her neck, biting lightly. Hot pleasure pulsed through her. She liked his teeth. She caught his wrist and squeezed it.
His hand turned in hers. Caught her fingers and lifted them to his mouth. He kissed her palm, meeting her eyes over their interlinked fingers. His were a wild pale gold, the eyes of a night creature on the hunt. “Lift your skirts,” he said hoarsely.
She stared at him. She was draped over him like a carpet. This was no position in which he could accomplish . . . regrettable things. Was it?
“Lift your skirts,” he repeated very softly. He licked the full length of her palm, then lowered her hand and placed it firmly on her calf.
What did he intend? What was she doing? For her hand obeyed even while her mind still balked. She lifted the hem, inch by inch, and his breath hissed against her temple, an urgent encouragement as her calf came into view.
He took hold of her calf, nudging her own hand out of the way—higher. “Go on,” he said.
She would stop now. In just a moment. Above her knee, she would stop. She pulled her hem higher, dazzled by the sight of her own slim calf, so ladylike in its embroidered stocking. His hand followed, trailing in a sure, firm stroke. His palm wrapped around her knee, a hot, solid warmth. She stared at this sight, the breadth of his large hand, tanned from the sun. These were her finest stockings, purchased on an extravagant whim; they looked all the more delicate beneath his grip. All the lovelier. So easily he might have ripped them. How tightly he held her!
“Higher,” he whispered.
Caught in some spell, she obeyed. He made a noise deep in his throat as she revealed the ribbon that tied her stocking at her thigh.
He slipped one finger beneath the edge of this ribbon, a hot shocking touch against her bare skin. A breath escaped her. A strange little puff. The sight was . . . wholly, unbearably erotic. The hard, callused press of his hand against her tender skin. The place between her thighs began to ache. His hand seemed to claim her. Mine, it said.
“Higher,” he growled.
She trembled, unable to take that final step.
His hand slipped upward, out of sight. Enveloped by her skirts. With his palm, he cupped her fully. He pressed hard, in that place where she ached, empty and needing.
A gasp tore from her. She laid her face in the crook of his shoulder.
He ground his palm against her. “Here,” he rasped.
His hand made a solid pressure against her. Her quim pulsed, a greedy demand.
His lips came against her ear. “The things I would do to you,” he said. “Give you what you need.”
Her hips jerked. Do it.
“Say the word.” He pressed harder. “Yes, that’s it. Rock. Rub against me.”
Ah, God—
“Say it.” He was growling against her now. “Tell me you want this.”
I want this.
“Tell me to take you.”
Take me. The words rang so clearly in her head that they penetrated her fever. She pushed away from him.
“Stop!” She scrambled to her feet, knocking her skirts down. “Stop! It’s my choice, you said.”
“Yes.” He loosed a long, hard breath. His blond hair was wild—from the clutch of her hands, she realized. She had done that to him. She had mussed him up, left him disheveled. Put her mark on him. Mine.
She stepped backward, away from that thought. Away from him. Away from her own stupidity.
Turning on her heel, she left before her mind could change.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“We’re calling it the Martini-Enfield.” Mr. William Scott, of the Small Arms Factory at Enfield, pulled the rifle from his carpetbag and laid it on Christian’s desk. He was a portly, bald, bespectacled man, with a shining, round head and a wide, strained smile. He was wearing a sprig of oak leaves in his buttonhole, which he fondled n
ervously.
He would not have been smiling at all, had he realized the narrowness of his escape this morning. Christian had eight men patrolling the grounds, who had not been forewarned to expect a guest. Had they lacked military backgrounds, they might not have recognized the vehicle’s insignia of the Royal Small Arms—in which case, Mr. Scott would never have reached the front door. Instead he would have been shown to a shed, in gag and shackles.
“It’s a handsome rifle,” Christian said. Thinner than previous models, with a barrel encased in fine-grained wood. Whose opinion did Scott want? Palmer’s, or Major Stratton’s? And whose opinion was he voicing now? Only fools valued a gun for its beauty.
“Isn’t it?” It seemed that Mr. Scott sensed the impropriety of his unannounced visit. He atoned with an excess of enthusiasm. “The most beautiful gun in the world, we like to say.” With a flourish of his pudgy hand, he indicated the wood encasing. “No more singed hands. And a safety bolt, mind you. That will prevent any problems with her trigger.”
Why was it that guns were always referred to as female? Perhaps, Christian thought, because men wished to handle them as much as they feared them. He picked up the rifle, lifting and sighting a spot out the window.
“Sighted to two thousand yards,” said Mr. Scott helpfully.
“Indeed.” He turned the rifle and found himself looking through the sights into a window of the east wing, which extended out from the body of the house like the foot of an L.
Lilah stood at a window, staring out toward the fields. Was she thinking of him? Of his hand between her legs, and the hot sounds he’d drawn from her . . .
He gritted his teeth. Mr. Scott might be hoping for his admiration, but he would not appreciate such a visceral demonstration of it.
As Christian schooled himself, he became riveted by the details revealed by the magnified power of the scope. He could make out the fine details of the buttons at Lilah’s throat—gray, unadorned, she was wearing that wretched ash-colored dress again. Her lower lip looked full and tender, protuberant, as though she were pouting. The glossy dark tumble of her chignon was collapsing down her nape—a waste, when he was not nearby to run his fingers through it. She pressed the flat of her palm against the glass with great force, as though trying to push free.
She looked like a trapped woman. Glaring out at the countryside as though at distant salvation, denied to her.
How well he knew that feeling.
“How does it feel?” asked Mr. Scott.
Boredom and impatience and the uncertainty of his predicament probably accounted for most of his fascination with her. Animal lust explained the rest. So he told himself as he lowered the rifle.
“It’s weighted differently than the Martini-Henry,” he said. “Bit heavier.”
“Only by a few ounces. A negligible difference, I assure you.”
Christian turned back to eye the man’s rotund figure. He’d wager that William Scott had never trudged uphill in a driving rain, toting a full pack and a tent along with his rifle. If so, he would have known that a few ounces could matter.
But Palmer would not point that out.
Mr. Scott lifted his brows hopefully. “Have you noted the bayonet?”
Christian tossed up the rifle and caught it by the stock. From the corner of his eye, he saw Scott flinch.
Inventors and their children. He returned the rifle to the table with a show of conciliatory care. “New placement for it,” he noted. Formerly, the bayonet had been affixed to the side of the barrel, rather than beneath it.
“Precisely. Men complained that it got in the way when firing. Not that you had such trouble,” Mr. Scott added quickly.
Got in the way. That was one way to put it. In the heat of battle, Christian had seen a man gored by one of his own panicking comrades. “Not so much trouble,” he said dryly. He’d been drenched with blood before he’d managed to bandage Smaldon’s wound.
The memory darkened his mood. His time in the army had never seemed particularly savage. But of late, when these memories resurfaced, he viewed them with startled eyes, amazed at how casually he’d borne the carnage.
No going back. Even his memories were holding him at a distance now.
“Well.” He felt suddenly exhausted. Ashmore had written—but without news. Nor had Christian’s men found any sign of Bolkhov, here or at Susseby. And so Christian waited, idle and useless as a decoy on hunt day. No wonder he felt rather hollow. “It’s a fine gun. But I’m no longer in the service.”
“My goodness, of course not.” Mr. Scott nudged up his spectacles with the tip of his thumb. “But your endorsement, my lord, would mean a great deal.”
“My endorsement.” He spoke the words flatly, not wanting to understand them.
“Yes, indeed. We hope to outfit the entire military with this model. But you know how Parliament balks at authorizing any useful expenditures. The safety of our fighting men is nothing to them, not when weighed against all manner of useless fripperies. The beautification of parks, and the building of grand thoroughfares and whatnot—”
He interrupted Scott’s fine, mounting sarcasm. “I am not political.” He said it very levelly, because he did not fathom why the proposition should suddenly touch off such anger. He’d been saddled with this position, this yoke that he’d not been born or trained to bear. His brother had welcomed and wanted it, but now he must wear it, and it anchored him as solidly as iron. My goodness, of course he no longer served in the military. He was the Viscount bloody Palmer. He read parliamentary reports over lunch.
“Oh . . . yes,” Mr. Scott said hesitantly. “Of course, my lord. Only . . . have I mentioned the cartridges? I do think you’ll approve of them.” He jammed his hands into his pockets, as though to physically check his excitement. “Mind you, the Martini-Henry has its place still. We’d not propose to scrap them entirely. They never jammed on a man who knew how to handle a cartridge properly. But all the reports of trouble from the Sudan have put a crimp in our side. So we came up with a new type of cartridge—quite clever, really. Uniform to a millimeter. They’re interchangeable with a machine gun and a carbine to boot. Imagine the possibilities!”
“Marvelous,” Christian said. “Some very bloody times ahead.”
Mr. Scott blinked. “Indeed. But we shall do the bloodying. Our brave men will be safer, with this weapon at their disposal.”
He nodded. He would never argue against a better weapon.
“So . . . what do you say? Would you recommend it?”
“As I said. I have not yet taken my seat in the Lords. Once I have done—”
“But you certainly have Parliament’s ear,” Mr. Scott said. “And that of the general public. The world at large! We’re taking it on tour, you see—several military colleges in America have expressed an interest. An endorsement from the Hero of Bekhole would mean a great deal. We would be most grateful to have a letter from you, to excerpt in our advertisements.” Scott offered what he no doubt considered to be a winning smile.
Christian nodded. The Hero of Bekhole, of course. He was not Geoff, and everybody knew it. Instead he would be cast as the smiling mannequin, whose hastily considered opinions might afford a prime quote for the sale of munitions. “I’d have to test it,” he said. “But it looks to be a splendid weapon, yes.”
“Yes! ‘A splendid weapon,’ exactly.” Beaming, Scott patted down his jacket. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a pen and paper handy? Or—would you prefer to send me a longer passage, with that bit included? And perhaps, if you permit it, we might include a sketch of you in our advertisements, an artistic rendering of the moment when you received the Victoria Cross?”
Now he was going to be turned into a bloody cartoon. “Why not?” And from there, soap boxes. Join the Everleigh Girls in hawking Pearson’s. Why bloody not, indeed?
Mr. Scott looked delighted. As Christian walked him out, he waxed poetic about his vision for the campaign. “And if I might suggest it, you could make mention in your
letter of the advantage of the new cartridges—perhaps, if you agree, an observation of how handy they might have proved at Bekhole.”
Christian fought a bizarre urge to laugh. Seventy of his men had overcome three hundred of the enemy, soaking the vale with their blood—but yes, what a pity it hadn’t been even bloodier. He was grateful, when they entered the entry hall, to cross paths with Lilah, whom he called over to be introduced. Mr. Scott, forced to make courtesies that did not allow for mention of his rifle, showed himself out posthaste.
“Why is everyone wearing oak leaves?” Lilah asked, when the door at last closed.
Christian loosed a long breath, calling his thoughts back from some black churning place. “It’s Royal Oak Day.”
“Oh. Of course.”
She would not quite meet his eyes. A flush rode her cheeks, reminding him of pleasanter matters. What he’d done recently to make her blush like that.
“What is Royal Oak Day?” she asked.
He blinked. She couldn’t be serious. “Mobbing Day,” he said. “Patching Day. Shig-Shag Day, in some parts.”
She nodded solemnly. “Gibberish Day, in others?”
“Come now. The celebration of King Charles the Second’s escape from the Roundheads?”
She blinked. “Goodness. Time truly does stand still in the countryside.”
He looked her over. “Are you certain you’re English?”
She scowled. “I will not indulge in renewed speculation about my parentage.”
The banter was lightening his mood, at least. “King Charles hid up an oak tree at Boscobel House, to escape the opposing army.”
“How kingly.”
He smiled. “Hence the leaves. All good subjects wear a sprig of Royal Oak on May 29, to demonstrate their loyalty to the Crown. Is it not so in Surrey?”
She shrugged. “I don’t suppose anybody sees a need to demonstrate their loyalty in Surrey. It’s guaranteed. What happens to those who refuse to wear the leaves?”