“You don’t believe that. If I am already defeated, why did you even waste time bringing me down?”
His lip curled and he gave her an ugly look. “For the same reason I kill mice. Rodents will never rule the world, but even hiding in the walls they’re still vermin.” He hefted the papers she’d given him. “Congratulations, Miss Marshall. You survived to hide in the walls for a little longer.”
Chapter Fourteen
“FREE,” OLIVER SAID LATER that night. “We haven’t had much time to talk, but—”
Free yawned. It was not quite by design, that yawn. She was tired. After the guests had left, she’d stayed up even later composing changes to her article the next day. Oliver had sent one of his servants off to the telegraph office, and then had brought her up to the room he’d set aside for her for the evening.
He smiled at her. “And I know you’re tired. But that fellow you’re working with, that Mr. Clark…” He paused, looked away. “I’m not sure he’s proper.”
Free blinked at her brother. Oliver had paid her bail four times, had been the one to retrieve her from the lock hospital. He’d read every column she’d written in her paper. He knew how she spent her time. Propriety was not a word that had often been associated with her. That was a word that belonged to misses on the marriage mart.
“Oliver, are you worried about my reputation? That’s sweet. Stupid, yes. But sweet.”
He flushed. “No. That’s not it. I’m not sure he’s, um.” He cleared his throat. “Law-abiding. You know, he blackmailed Mark Andrews.”
Was she supposed to feel sorry for the man who’d done his best to ruin her paper? Who had stolen and lied and betrayed her brother’s trust? Oliver really had been in Parliament too long. “And Andrews gave in? Pfft. Weakling.”
When Edward had tried to blackmail her, she’d not so much as budged.
Oliver shook his head, sighing. “I can see you’re not much swayed.”
“I know he’s a scoundrel,” Free said. “He told me so himself. And you know me. If I was the sort to fall in with the first scoundrel who presented himself, I’d never have made it so far.”
“Well, there is that.” Her brother looked faintly relieved.
He shouldn’t have. She’d just called to mind Edward’s first blackmail attempt with great fondness. She could see herself with Mr. Clark at some point in the future—an old married couple sitting on a porch in summer, holding hands and reminiscing over past times.
Do you remember the time you blackmailed me?
Yes, dear. You blackmailed me right back. It was the sweetest thing. I knew then that we were meant for each other.
She wasn’t thinking about how dreadful he was any longer. She’d been thinking that her first investigations would have been so much easier with Edward to forge her references.
“I’m tired,” Free told her brother. “Thank you for everything. I’d never have been able to rid myself of Delacey without you.” She leaned up and kissed his cheek. “You’re my favorite brother.”
“I’m your only brother,” he said in dark amusement.
“You see?” Free spread her arms. “I can’t count on any of the others to even exist when I need them.”
“Go to sleep, silly.” But Oliver was smiling as he extinguished the lamp and left.
Free’s mind didn’t calm when she put her head on the pillow. Instead, it raced ahead—to the last rendezvous she had planned for the evening. One that she had not-so-coincidentally neglected to mention to her brother, on the theory that what brothers didn’t know couldn’t keep them awake at night.
The noises of the household died away. The servants’ footsteps retreated belowstairs, then their voices ceased altogether. When the house had been quiet ten minutes, Free slipped on a robe and slippers and tiptoed out, down the wide stairs, back through the pantry, out the servants’ door. The moon lit the mews in silver. She looked around, waiting…
“Free.”
When had he begun to call her that? She turned to the sound of his voice.
“Frederica,” he repeated, in that low, dark voice.
Edward came out of the shadows of the stables, and she put her arms around herself. She hadn’t precisely lied to her brother a half-hour past. Edward wasn’t the first scoundrel she’d met, just the best one. Amazing, how the world around her seemed to alter simply because he was present. She might have said his voice was like velvet, that the air was warm and welcoming. But his voice was far more like gravel with that hint of abrasion to it. The night was cooling off, and while a breath of warm air carried the sweet scent of newly cut grass in the square, it warred with the more mundane odor of the stables.
She looked up as Edward drew near, but could see only shadows on his face. “I take it you served Delacey successfully?” he asked.
Rodents will never rule the world. Even invoking that man gave her a shiver. She might never rule the world, but she could still gnaw a mighty hole in his plaster. “I did.”
“How does it feel to vanquish your enemy?” he asked.
How odd it was, this doubled view of the world. Everyone had seen Delacey’s papers. The account in her newspaper, speeding off the press as they spoke, would not be the only one. All of London would know that Delacey had arranged for the copies to be made, had burned down her house.
Yes, she might be vermin, but there were a lot of mice gnawing in concert, and together they might take him down.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she turned to him. “How does it feel to have your revenge?”
Because he had it now. This was all he had wanted: to foil Delacey’s plans and humiliate him. He’d no reason to stay around, now that was finished.
So why did everything still feel so unsettled?
He took a step toward her. “Strange you should say that.” His voice was whisper-soft. His hand stole up to brush her cheek. “I don’t know. Over the last days, I’ve scarcely thought of revenge at all.”
His fingers scarcely grazed her skin, but even that light touch sent a cascade of electricity through her.
“I should like to know something,” she said. “I need to know why you started our conversation all those weeks ago by blackmailing me.”
There was a pause. He pulled away from her, straightening so that he was a great, dark tower of height. “I should think that was obvious. I wanted you to do something; I had the means to make you do it. So—”
“But you didn’t have to. You said it yourself—you could have charmed me. You could have written yourself any sort of reference. But you’ve never tried to win my trust. Not once. Instead, from the very beginning, you told me repeatedly that you were a scoundrel and I shouldn’t trust you. Why did you do that?”
She couldn’t hear him breathe. She listened, straining, through the sound of crickets. But his silhouette remained utterly still.
“I suppose I did,” he said softly. “How curious. I hadn’t precisely realized.”
Now Free couldn’t breathe, waiting to hear his response.
“That first time we met on the bank of the Thames.” He spoke slowly, as if he were choosing his words with precision. “You bowled me over. I remember watching you leave, feeling as if I was in need of an exclamation point. But I didn’t have room for anything except full stops.” He shrugged. “You have to set boundaries before you get in the thick of things, because once you’re caught up in the act, you lose your head. You need to decide when to walk away: from cards, from a confidence game.” He glanced over at her. “From you. Maybe that’s what I was doing. Making sure that I would walk away before I lost my head. I had to make sure you would never trust me, because otherwise…”
She had no idea what words to interpose in that pause. She knew he’d admired her. That much had been obvious, even that first day by the river, and it had only become more pronounced as time passed.
“It doesn’t matter now. I know you well enough to know you’d never have implemented your threats.”
She
heard his sharp inhalation, saw his hand jerk toward her and then slip away. “I would like to think I wouldn’t.” His voice was low. “But long experience tells me that I can’t make that promise. Don’t tell yourself otherwise. I don’t trust myself, Free, and you shouldn’t either.”
Oh, she didn’t trust him—at least not to tell her the truth about himself any longer. “Do continue,” she said politely. “Suppose that I went and told Delacey about your involvement. That would surely ruin some of your other plans. How would you stop me? Would you pen a letter I wrote to a lover, filled with sordid imaginings? Or would you aim for the purely financial? I can give you my banking arrangements; if you wish to make a hash of them, I can provide you with all the necessary details.”
“Free.” His voice was dark and forbidding. “Don’t.”
“Or maybe you’ll attack my parents. My sisters. I’ll make a list of all the people I love. I can hand over a complete dossier tomorrow, if that’s convenient. Of course, if I am allowed to register a preference…” She took a step toward him and set her hand on his chest. “I would prefer to be ruined by you. In the flesh.”
He growled deep in his throat, and his hand came up to cover hers. “What are you doing, Free?”
“Tell me, Edward. Tell me truly. What is this awful thing you’ll do to hurt me?”
He didn’t speak.
“I won’t even try and evade it. I’ll make it simple for you. All you have to do is look me in the eye and tell me that you could willingly ruin my life if I threatened yours. Go ahead.”
He let go of her hand and turned away from her.
“I knew it,” she said. “You stupid, stupid man. I knew it. You with your ‘of course you don’t trust me’s and your fake blackmail. You’re so clever, you almost fooled me.” She felt her throat catch. “You almost made me believe that I couldn’t trust you. But you failed, do you hear me? You failed utterly. I could put everything in your hands, and you’d never betray me. I could shut my eyes and throw myself to the ground, and you’d catch me before I had a single scratch.”
He blew out his breath.
“I knew it when I first saw Delacey in there,” she said. “For the tiniest instant, I thought he was you. Don’t be offended; it was a trick of the light. It was a trick of my heart, looking for you even when I knew I wouldn’t find you. For just one moment—that moment when I thought that I’d seen you—I smiled. And I felt the whole world come alight.”
He was stock-still, completely unmoving.
“And then he turned, and I realized who it was.” She gave a little laugh. “Once, many years ago, I had this dream. It was rather racy, if you must know. There was a young man I fancied, and in my dream…” She cleared her throat delicately. “In any event, I shut my eyes in my dream, focusing on the sensation. And then I opened them, and as things are in dreams, that handsome, charming young man had turned into the aging vicar. All my want washed away in a cold flush of revulsion. That’s what it felt like tonight. He came and spoke to me, and all I could think was, Free, you idiot, this is what it’s like not to trust a man. I don’t care what you say. You would never, ever hurt me.”
“I would,” he growled.
“You’re so arrogant that it never occurred to me that you doubted yourself so. But you do, don’t you?”
He made a surprised noise. And then he turned back to her. “I doubt every inch of happiness that comes my way.”
She set her hand on his wrist. “Don’t.”
“I can’t ask you to trust me,” he said. But he didn’t draw away. Instead, he turned his hand in hers, so that his gloved fingers faced hers, interlacing.
“You don’t have to ask.” She ran her thumb along his palm. “That’s the beauty of it. You don’t have to ask me to trust you. I already do.”
“You shouldn’t.” He wrapped his other arm about her waist, pulling her to him abruptly. “A trustworthy man would never do this.” And before she had a chance to say anything—before she could even contemplate the heat of his body pressed against hers or the hard muscle of his chest—his lips found hers. No preamble; no light brushes. There was no need for it; the memory of their last kiss was on both their lips already. His mouth was hard and desperate, lips opening to hers. The unshaven stubble on his cheeks brushed her. It made the kiss all that more complex—so sweet, so lovely. She’d wanted this—wanted him—and now she didn’t need to hold back.
Still, she set one hand on his chest and gave him a light push. “Wait.”
He stopped instantly, pulling away. “What is it?”
She laughed and dropped her voice to mimic his. “‘A trustworthy man would never do this.’ Oh, yes, Mr. Clark. Look how untrustworthy you are. You stopped kissing me the instant I asked you to do it.”
“Damn you, Free.” But there was a note of dark amusement in his voice.
She twined her arms about his neck. She had to stretch up to do it, her body lengthening along his. She leaned forward and set her lips against his neck. “Damn us both.”
He tasted of salt, and he let out a breath as she touched her tongue to the hollow of his neck, following it up his jawbone.
“You’ll pay for that.” His voice was a low rumble in his chest. His fingers slid up her ribs; his left hand cupped her breast. And then he kissed her again. This time, his kiss was slow and gentle. His fingers against her breast warmed her, making slow circles that matched the stroke of his tongue. She’d been right: He was the absolute best scoundrel she’d ever known.
She’d heard another girl talking about how a man’s kisses had made her insensible, unable to think. It seemed so odd now. Why would anyone want to stop sensing at a time like this, stop thinking about how lovely it all felt? The entire world felt more—sweeter, more solid, more real, as if his mouth on hers grounded her to earth. As if that careful caress, the fingers of his left hand sliding under the neckline of her gown, were sketching the details of the night sky for her, putting in moon and stars over the dark cloud of London’s soot.
He’d backed her against the wall of the mews. She felt the rough planks against her spine. But she simply leaned back and took the opportunity to explore him—to run her hands down his chest, feeling every curve of muscle go taut beneath the linen of his shirt. He stepped into her, leaning against her until they were hip to hip, until she could feel the hardness of his erection pressing into her. Her whole body sang in response.
He pulled back just long enough to lean his forehead against hers. “Lovely Free,” he whispered. “God, I should not be doing this.”
“Too true. You should be doing more. Much more.”
He shook his head, but leaned in to kiss her again. And this time, it was a whole different world of a kiss—a kiss that said it was coming before, a kiss that promised a night after this one, and a night after that. It was a kiss that said that all those weeks they’d known one another had been only a prelude to this moment. This was only the second act of the play, but the climax was not out of sight. It was a kiss of bodies, of hips and hands, of breasts and tongues. His hands tangled briefly in her laces, loosening her bodice; she helped him undo it, just enough so that he could lean down and set his mouth there, right on her nipple.
“Stop,” Free said. And he did, pulling away when she least wanted him to, even though his body vibrated with want and his hands clenched on her hips.
“I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely. “Sorry—I shouldn’t have—”
She laughed. “You stopped again. Edward, if you don’t want me to trust you, you shouldn’t be so trustworthy.”
He let out a breath. “Ah, you’re teasing me.”
“I’m proving something to you,” she said. “Because you seem to think that you don’t deserve to be trusted.”
He didn’t say anything. Instead, he leaned down and took her nipple in his mouth. She could feel his tongue, swirling in a long, lazy circle. He set her aflame, caressing her. It wasn’t an answer, and yet it was.
Please, he said.
Yes, she said.
Trust me. Trust this.
She’d talked to enough ladies of the night that she knew the lack of a bed was no impediment. But he made no effort to take it further than the press of their bodies, the touch of fingers against willing flesh. He did nothing more than stoke their heady, insistent desire. He kissed her, touched her, brought her to small, silent gasps as her body came to life. Another five minutes, and a little less clothing, and he could have brought her all the way to ecstasy. He didn’t though. He held her until the last dim light in the garret across the way winked out, until the streetlamp twenty yards down began to flicker. Until her head spun with lack of sleep and kissing, and her body ached for what was to come.
“Come to me,” she whispered to him. “Come to me tomorrow night.”
His hands tightened on her body and he shuddered. He didn’t let go of her, but he drew his head back.
“Frederica,” he said in a low voice. His hand slid up her nightrail, sliding the sleeve back onto her shoulder, covering her up. “If I take one night from you, I’ll want all the rest of your nights. And even I’m not so selfish as to demand them from you.”
She put her hand over his. “What happened to the man who told me he was maddeningly brilliant? To the scoundrel who asked me to think about how attractive I found his muscles?”
“Bluster will last me a night. Swagger, a week.” His hand brushed her face. “Beyond that? I can’t promise you anything more.”
The night seemed absolutely still around them—soundless and empty, without even the rustle of wind to disturb them.
He took her hand in his and kissed her fingertips. “Pain is a black ink,” he told her. “Once it’s spilled on a man’s soul, it’ll never scrub out. Deep down, Miss Marshall, there’s nothing to me but blackness.” He leaned in. “And Free, darling—I think you know that.”