“You’re wrong, madam. I don’t know who you are but rest assured you have all the time in the world to read that journal.”
She straightened and turned quickly, intending to bolt toward the door. She stopped when she saw the gun in Rosemont’s hand.
“What on earth do you think you’re doing?” she said. “Have you gone mad?”
“Stay where you are.” Rosemont edged back toward the door. “Don’t move. I swear I will kill you where you stand. You very likely noticed that I do not have many neighbors, certainly none that will pay any attention to a gunshot. A guarantee of privacy was the reason I established my business here.”
The gun was shaking in his hand. That was probably not a good sign. Rosemont was a desperate, unnerved man. He was so jittery now that it was possible he would pull the trigger accidentally.
“Very well,” she said, trying for a calm tone. “I will do as you say.” The only practical strategy that came to mind was to keep Rosemont talking. “Are you aware that Anne Clifton is dead?”
“I assumed that was quite likely when you said you wanted to know about her visits to this shop.”
“Did you kill her?”
“What? No. Why would I murder her? Things were going quite well. But I feared the arrangement would not last forever. Bargains with devils and all that. That is why I made plans for an eventuality such as this.”
“What plans would those be, Mr. Rosemont?” she asked.
He ignored the question. “Who are you?”
“My name is Mrs. Kern. I was Anne’s employer.”
“I see. Well, you were a fool to get involved in this affair, madam.”
“What affair? What is going on, Mr. Rosemont? I think you owe me some explanation.”
“I owe you nothing but I will tell you this much—I rue the day I agreed to make that damned ambrosia drug. The money was excellent but it did not compensate me for the risks I have taken.”
Rosemont stepped quickly back into the adjoining room and slammed the door shut. She heard the clank of a heavy, old-fashioned iron key in the lock.
“Scream for help if you like,” Rosemont called through the door. His muffled voice was barely audible. “No one will hear you. Not that you’ll be screaming for long. This will all be over quite soon, I assure you.”
TWENTY-ONE
For a moment she stood very still, her heart pounding in a drumbeat of near panic. The squeak and groan of the floorboards told her that Rosemont was moving around in the shop. There was no way to know what he planned to do next. Perhaps he meant to starve her to death. That didn’t make sense, though. He had told her that it would all be over quite soon.
She shivered, drew a deep breath, collected her nerve and took stock of her surroundings.
There was a second door that probably opened onto an alley. Not surprisingly, it was locked. There was no key in the lock. Next she checked the window. The boards that covered the glass panes were securely attached to the walls but she thought she might be able to loosen them given time and an object that could serve as a pry bar.
She began to search the room for a useful tool. Large ceramic containers were lined up against one wall. She lifted the lid of one of the pots very carefully—and quickly replaced it when choking fumes wafted out.
She spotted a long iron rod standing in one corner and decided it would work. But Rosemont was still moving around in the outer rooms of the shop. Prying the boards off the windows would be a noisy and time-consuming process. She did not want to attract his attention. He had indicated that he would soon be leaving. She decided to wait to tackle the boarded-up windows until he left the premises.
She looked at the sacks in the corner. Judging by the odor, they contained the same herbs that were in the packages stacked in the shipping crate.
One of the sacks was open. Reaching inside, she plucked out a handful of dried plant material. She took a hankie out of her satchel, wrapped up a sample and secured it with a knot.
The floorboards groaned again. She thought she heard the faint thud of an outer door closing. A great silence descended. She was quite certain that she was now alone.
She dropped the little bundle of dried herbs into her satchel and rushed to the door that opened onto the back room. With luck Rosemont had left the key in the lock out of sheer force of habit. He had, after all, been very nervous. In her other life she had learned a thing or two about keys. A woman on her own could not be too careful.
She heard a muffled whoosh just as she knelt in front of the doorknob. The faint scent of smoke wafted under the door.
A fresh dose of fear iced her spine. She had assumed that once Rosemont left the shop she would have time to work out an escape. She was wrong. The perfume maker had set fire to the premises on his way out the door.
The shock stole her breath and threatened to paralyze her. The building was going to burn down around her.
The smoke wafting under the door was stronger now. It carried a strong herbal odor. Rosemont had ignited the fire in the crate of dried plant materials. The stuff was no doubt highly flammable. The wall and the thick door that stood between the laboratory and the back room would buy her some time but not much.
She peered into the keyhole. Relief jittered through her when she saw that the key was, indeed, still in the lock.
She rose and rushed back to where her satchel stood on the workbench. She grabbed her stenography notebook, opened it and tore out two pages. Rushing back to the door, she crouched and pushed the pages under the bottom edge. She could only hope that the fire would not reach them before she finished what she intended to do.
Stripping off one glove, she removed a stout hatpin and eased it into the lock. She manipulated the length of metal carefully, pushing the key out of the lock. She heard it clatter when it fell to the floor on the other side of the door.
She bent down to peer under the door to see if the key had landed on the paper—and got a strong dose of herb-scented smoke for her trouble.
Her head swam. It was as if she was floating in midair. A strange, terrifying excitement roared through her. The sensation was so disorienting that if she had been standing she would have lost her balance altogether.
She straightened to her knees, automatically covering her nose and mouth with one hand. When the terrible feeling eased somewhat, she raised her skirts and tore a strip off her petticoats. She tied the fabric around the lower half of her face to serve as a mask. She took a breath and leaned down again to see if she had been successful.
A relief that was even more powerful than the disorienting sensations swept through her when she saw that the iron key had landed on one of the notebook pages.
Gingerly she tugged the paper with the key on it under the edge of the door.
Her heart sank when she discovered the key was warm to the touch. If the heat was already so intense in the back room it might be too late to make it to safety.
She peered through the keyhole and saw that her worst fears were confirmed. The other room was an inferno of dark smoke. She had no idea how long the thick wooden door would hold out against the flames.
She looked across the laboratory at the locked door that opened onto the alley and then she looked down at the key she had just retrieved.
No shopkeeper would bother to install two different locks requiring different keys for doors that locked the same room.
She hurried to the alley door and inserted the key. It turned readily in the lock. The door opened and she was free. She was about to rush to safety when she remembered her satchel.
Whirling, she dashed back across the laboratory and grabbed the bag. Then she hurried through the doorway into the narrow fog-choked alley.
A man in a sweeping black greatcoat raced down the lane toward her.
“Ursula,” Slater shouted.
He wrapped one arm arou
nd her and hauled her toward the far end of the alley. Behind them the old building gave one last groan and started to collapse in on itself.
The explosion occurred a short time later, just as Slater got Ursula into the hansom. The horse bolted. Griffith swore and fought to control the animal.
Slater made it into the cab. “Get us out of here,” he ordered.
Griffith did not argue. The hansom took off at a great rate of speed.
Slater looked at Ursula. “What the devil?”
“Chemicals,” she managed. She took great, deep breaths. “The laboratory was full of them. The fire must have set them off.”
TWENTY-TWO
I do wish that you would sit down, Slater,” Ursula said. “Watching you pace back and forth like a caged lion is making me nervous. I have already sustained a fair amount of stress today.”
They were in her study. She was seated on a stool in front of the fire, drying her hair and drinking the medicinal dose of brandy that Mrs. Dunstan had poured for her.
There had been very few words spoken in the hansom. Slater had locked one arm around her and virtually imprisoned her. For the most part he had simply repeated her name and asked her over and over again if she was all right. She had assured him each time that she was fine while secretly taking comfort in his strength and the warmth and the scent of him.
She was accustomed to being alone but in the aftermath of the near disaster she had to admit to herself that she was very glad of Slater’s company. The sense of intimacy would not last but at the moment it was a blessing like no other.
The moment they walked into the front hall of her town house, Mrs. Dunstan had taken charge, ushering her upstairs and into a warm bath. By the time she emerged, the early dark of a winter night had settled on the city.
She had put on a dressing gown and descended the stairs to the study to dry her hair in front of the fire. She had been shocked to discover that Slater was waiting for her.
She had hesitated in the doorway. The comfortable, loose-fitting dressing gown with its long skirts and full sleeves was quite modest. Indeed, the fashion journals considered such gowns suitable attire for ladies to wear downstairs to breakfast. But there was no escaping the fact that there was a suggestion of intimacy about a dressing gown. The style, after all, had been inspired by the French.
She had walked into the study, thrilled not only by Slater’s presence but by her own daring. The burning look that Slater had given her had warmed her as nothing else could have done. She had unwrapped the towel that bound her wet hair and sat down on the stool in front of the hearth.
Mrs. Dunstan had brought in a tray with a light supper of hot vegetable soup, hard-boiled eggs, cheese and bread. Slater had spoken little during the meal. He had helped himself to some of the cheese and bread and devoted himself to prowling the small space while Ursula dined.
It was not until Mrs. Dunstan had removed the tray that Ursula realized that the expression in Slater’s eyes was the heat of controlled anger, not desire. He was in a dangerous mood.
“I’m making you nervous?” he asked. “How the devil do you think I felt when I realized Rosemont’s shop was on fire and there was no sign of you anywhere?”
Ursula adjusted the towel around her shoulders and reached for the brandy glass.
“Very well,” she said, trying to acknowledge his point with grace. She swallowed some brandy and set the glass aside. “I do comprehend that you may have been somewhat startled by the fire.”
“Startled?” Slater closed the distance between them with two long strides, reached down and hauled her up off the stool. “Startled? Madam, I was teetering on the brink of madness when I saw you emerge from the alley door. It’s a wonder I’m not being fitted for a straitjacket and booking a room in an asylum at this very moment.”
Her own temper flashed like lightning. “I am very sorry you are so overset by recent events, Mr. Roxton, but I would remind you that I am the one who nearly died today.”
“Good Lord, woman, don’t you think I realize that? You scared the hell out of me. Don’t ever do anything like that again, do you understand?”
“It’s not as if I intended to end up in a house fire.”
“You should never have gone to that shop alone. If you hadn’t mentioned your destination to your housekeeper—” He broke off, jaw tightening.
“It was a perfume shop, for heaven’s sake, a place that Anne had evidently visited any number of times.”
“Exactly. And I would remind you that Anne Clifton is dead. What were you thinking?”
She opened her mouth to answer him but she never got the chance. He yanked her hard against his chest and kissed her with a fierceness that stole her breath.
The kiss was not meant to summon her response, nor was it an exploratory kiss intended to woo her and invite her into greater intimacy. This was a lightning strike of a kiss, meant to lay waste to any thought of resistance. It was a claiming, conquering kiss, a kiss fueled by a wildfire of desire and demand. Slater branded her with the kiss as though he was intent on marking her as his and his alone.
The kiss ignited her senses.
After a stunned few seconds, an electrifying thrill arced through her. She was consumed with a deep, aching urgency, a need that matched the primal forces she sensed in Slater.
She wrapped her arms around him and threw herself into the sensual battle. He responded with a shuddering groan that reverberated through every fiber of her being. The towel around her shoulders fell to the floor.
Without warning, Slater broke off the kiss and set her a few inches away, his hands locked around her forearms.
“Don’t move,” he said.
His low, husky command sent another wave of shivery excitement through her.
He released her, crossed the room to the door and turned the key in the lock. The ominous clink of iron-on-iron rang like a distant thunder in the small space. When he paced back toward her, yanking at the knot of his black tie, the dark promise in his eyes sent a delicious shiver of anticipation through her.
By the time he reached her the strip of silk dangled around his neck. He stood still, not touching her. She knew that he was waiting for some sign.
Fingers trembling, she reached up and undid the first button of his shirt.
That was all he needed. He clamped his hands around her waist, lifted her up off the ground and sat her on the edge of her desk. Before she realized his intention, he pushed the skirts of the dressing gown up over her knees and moved between her legs.
“Slater.”
She did not say anything else. Torn between shock and a rush of feverish excitement, she could not find any more words.
He anchored her with one hand wrapped around the back of her neck and kissed her again. She arched into the embrace, tightening her legs around his thighs. She savored the exotic drug that was his scent, a mix of sweat, soap and the unique essence that was Slater. No other man had ever clouded her senses in such a way.
And then he was undoing the fastenings at the front of the dressing gown. The layers of velvet and lace fell apart at his touch as though made of clouds and mist. There was no corset or camisole to bar his way. When his palm covered her breast she closed her eyes and turned her head into his shoulder to suppress a small cry.
“Half of London wonders why I have not shown any interest in forming a liaison with a woman,” Slater said. His thumb and forefinger tightened gently around one nipple. “I have asked myself the same question from time to time. But now I have the answer.”
She looked up at him through half-closed eyes and kissed his throat.
“What is the answer?” she asked, astonished by the sultry sound of her own voice.
He moved his hand from her breast to her knee. Deliberately he eased his palm up under the skirts of the gown, along the sensitive skin of her inner thigh and f
ound the hot, wet place between her legs. She took a sharp breath, shivering in response to the intimacy.
“I was waiting for you,” he said. “I just didn’t know it until I met you.”
“Slater.”
This time she said his name in an aching whisper because she could barely speak at all now.
She slipped her hand inside his partially open shirt and flattened her palm on his chest. She could feel the hard, sleek muscle beneath his warm skin.
He stroked her, drawing forth a response that took her by storm. His touch had a shattering effect on her senses. An unfamiliar tension built inside her. When he tugged on the sensitive bud at the top of her sex, her nails turned into small claws on his chest.
He slipped two fingers gently inside her. She caught her breath, instinctively tightening herself against the sensual invasion. The clenching action only served to ratchet up the tension.
In the early days of her marriage, before she had discovered the weaknesses in Jeremy’s character, she had enjoyed his kisses and thought herself content with the physical side of marriage. Jeremy had been nothing if not charming and he had accounted himself an expert lover. But even at the dawn of their relationship when she had still been in the giddy, hopeful phase of love, she had never experienced the level of excitement that gripped her now.
Perhaps it was the result of having very nearly perished in the fire. Perhaps the doctors were correct—maybe widowhood took a toll on a woman’s nerves. Whatever the reason, her reaction to Slater stunned her.
“I cannot take any more of this torment,” he said against her throat. “I need to be inside you. I need it more than I have ever needed anything in my life.”
He opened the front of his trousers, freeing his heavy erection. She was shocked anew when she looked down and saw the size of the man.
But before she could decide what to do next, he pushed her knees wider apart, gripped her hips with both hands and thrust hard and deep into her wet heat.