A Gentleman's Guide to Scandal (20 page)

She was practiced at bringing herself to pleasure alone, and now she lifted her hips to strike the familiar places. And then it was a game of reading every minute movement, guessing and adjusting and murmuring in frustration when they shifted wrong—and then
there
, a touch that cracked her open like an eggshell, and she drew in short, quick breaths, body moving swiftly against his as her climax found her.

It broke, and she pulled him against her, her movements stilling slowly.

“Was that . . . ?” he asked. “Did you . . .?”

“Yes,” she said, and coyly added, “Thank you.”

“You were quiet,” he said. “I wasn't sure.”

“I come from a family of light sleepers,” she whispered. “I am accustomed, when I pursue such pleasure alone, to staying silent.”

“And do you do that often?” he asked, overly casual. His member still pressed against her, insistent.

She lifted herself to whisper in his ear. “Every night,” she said.

He surged against her. The peak of her pleasure was passed, but she rode the remnants of sensation as he stroked against her. He gave a final, groaning thrust and heat spilled against her thigh, wet through the fabric of his drawers.

She settled back, the pulse of pleasure fading, satisfaction sweeping through her like the touch of sunlight on her skin. She wanted to hold him there, his warmth against her, for as long as she could.

But he pulled away. He walked to the corner and stripped off his drawers, using them to clean himself efficiently. He kept his back to her, and even as she admired the firm curve of his backside, she frowned.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

He glanced back. “No. Nothing,” he said. He was lying.

“Did I do something wrong?” She slipped off her mask, the better to see him. He looked swiftly away. Ah. That was it, then. The illusion was broken with his pleasure.

He crossed to the wardrobe without looking at her and seized a clean set of drawers. She slid from the bed.

“Lord Farleigh?” she touched his shoulder. He spun, caught her wrist.

“I should not have done that,” he said. Guilt made his voice thick.

“You have nothing to regret or apologize for,” she assured him.

He let out a long sigh. “Elinor, I am not always a good man. But I have never violated a woman that could suffer from it the way you could.” She glared at him. A moment ago she'd been muzzy and happy with the afterglow of their activities; now she felt the cool air on her thighs, and a cramp in her side.

“You didn't
violate
me,” Elinor snapped. Really, were all men like this after the deed? Matthew had done his fair share of groaning—during and after, it must be said—but that hadn't stopped him showing up for a repeat performance the next night.

“I have risked your reputation and your future for my own desires.”

“They were my desires, too,” she said.

“I don't expect you to understand.”

“I thought we were done arguing about this,” she said. It was certainly too late for it to change anything.

“So did I,” he said. He released her and stalked around her, pulling on his clothes rapidly. She crossed her arms. He dressed in a remarkably short time, though she had never seen Colin Spenser look quite so disheveled. He glanced at her. “You should get dressed,” he said. “We have work to do.”

“Not for some time yet,” Elinor said. “Colin—”

“Elinor, I'm sorry. I just need—something. I need to collect myself.”

“Then do it somewhere else,” Elinor told him. She sat on the bed and crossed her arms.

Colin looked as if he might say something more. An apology, perhaps. It had been alarming when he ignored her protests in favor of her desire, but it was at the very least
irritating
to have him dismiss her desire so thoroughly. She
had
asked
, after all, and now he was acting as if she didn't know what she was doing.

Finally, Colin walked to the door. She looked away. The door shut behind him. She resisted the urge to scream.

Lord Farleigh was an idiot. He was occasionally—and largely accidentally—cruel, but he was not a complete blackguard. In fact, she was quite certain that his reason for abandoning her in a dampened chemise, her hair disheveled and her shoulder bearing the red mark of an enthusiastic nip, was an overblown sense of chivalry.

She thought she had made it quite clear to him that she understood this to be purely physical. A matter of enjoyment, that was all. He could not have detected her errant surges of stronger emotion with her face concealed beneath the mask. She had not hinted at the pleasure she felt not just at his touch, but at the thought of belonging to him—with him—for a few stolen moments.

She shut her eyes. She was not quite sure when it had happened. He was infuriating. He was unsettling. And yet.

She sighed. She had feelings for him. The precise dimensions of them she was afraid to explore, as if knowing them would make them impossible to ignore. And ignore them was exactly what she intended to do. Ignore them and conceal them. They would amount to nothing. He was engaged—and had on numerous occasions made it clear that he harbored no such feelings for her.

The point was, she was quite certain that she had successfully concealed her feelings from him. Yet he had somehow decided she harbored them. It was the only explanation for his sudden departure. He felt guilty, because he thought he was leading her on, playing on feelings for him that he could never return—and did not wish to. The fact that he was
right
did not make it any less galling. He once again refused to take her at her word when she stated her desires. Or lack of them.

She glared at the door. It was just like a man to assume that a woman could not help but be all tangled up in emotion.

Idiot,
she thought, and this time she wasn't sure which of them she meant.

*   *   *

Colin strode down the hall, halted. Went two steps back, halted again. He shouldn't have left like that. He should have stayed, should have held her. Should have let them both revel in the exquisite pleasure of their encounter. But the moment he had finished, he'd been flooded with shame.

He was not being honest with her. As long as it was purely physical, purely pleasure given and taken, she welcomed him. But if she knew the depths of his feelings for her, she wouldn't touch him. She'd be so
kind
, not wanting to torment him. She'd be so
concerned
about his engagement.

And so, like an idiot, he'd left. Because certainly it was far better for her to be angry with him than to be
kind
. And wasn't that why he had been brusque with her, that night that Matthew proposed? Along with so many occasions since. He could bear not having her, but he could not bear her pity.

He'd thought he could bear not having her.

He'd thought it would be better not to have her at all than to have only part of her. And then his want had overwhelmed his will, and he would give anything to go back.

Or would he?

He slammed the side of his fist against the wall. “For God's sake, every other man in England is quite capable of putting his cock ahead of good sense without a crisis of conscience, why the hell can't you?”

He'd failed at the honorable course when it came to his fiancée, his duties to his best friend, to Elinor herself—and now he was making a mess of being dishonorable. It was almost funny.

He needed a drink.

He was at the head of the stairs before he remembered that he'd promised to avoid alcohol. The need gripped him as firmly as his desire for Elinor had earlier. He could imagine the first sip, subtle and startling at once. He could picture
the light through the liquid, the way it moved when he swirled his glass. There was something erotic about a good glass of liquor. But it wasn't the pleasure he sought right now. It was the oblivion.

He halted three steps down. He needed to keep a clear head.
One drink, then
, he thought. But he had never in his life stopped at one drink. He didn't understand how anyone could. It was impossible. Like willing your own heart to stop beating.

He gripped the bannister. What harm could it do?

What harm, indeed. Drunk, he'd ignored Elinor's protests. He'd kissed her when she didn't want him to. He'd bedded her.
I didn't tell you not to
, she'd said, but he wasn't certain that he'd have listened if she had. He didn't remember what had happened. Who could say what might have happened, when he was so far outside himself?

He'd given his word that he would remain sober while he was here.

That finally broke through his longing. He seized hold of it. He'd given his word, and what good was a man if he could not keep such a simple thing?

He would refrain, then. Until this journey was over, and Elinor was safely home.

He sighed. The decision was made, but now he was faced with a new conundrum. What did one
do
with oneself when one didn't drink?

Elinor had been glaring at the wall for less than a minute when a knock sounded at the door. She lurched upright. It must be Lord Farleigh, slinking back to make some mumbling apology. She threw open the door before remembering that she was still wearing only her chemise, and found herself staring at Edward Foyle.

A look of delight passed across his features. She strangled the urge to cross her arms over her chest, instead keeping one hand on the door and every inch of her barely concealed body on display. A courtesan would not flinch, she thought, and in any case she did not want to give him the pleasure. She'd seen enough bare bosoms the past twenty-four hours to realize that it was quite silly to worry about hiding hers, even if it made the back of her neck hot.

“Yes?” she said.

“Is Mr. Egret not here, then?” Mr. Foyle asked, but by his tone she guessed he was well aware of the answer, and had been before knuckle met wood.

“He's out,” she said.

She was not wearing her mask.

She stiffened, then forced herself to relax. They had never
met. Her face was not well-known—nor was her name. There was no reason to fear him.

“Perhaps I can keep you company,” he said. “Would you care to share a walk with me?”

“I—” She paused. She couldn't very well put him off. Not when speaking with him was the entire point of this exercise. “I must get my mask,” she said.

“That isn't necessary,” he said smoothly. Forestalling her next complaint, he added, “Nor is your dress, I think.” He flourished a neat stack of guineas. He took her hand, turning it palm-up, and dropped the coins one by one so that they clinked. “Consider it a bonus,” he said. “Mr. Egret has no need to know.”

“Five guineas for a walk?” Elinor asked lightly.

“You have been claimed. I can ask for no more. I can only hope that you will reconsider which man you have allowed to claim you,” he said.

You can refuse him
, she reminded herself. “Let me put these away,” she said, and pulled away from him before he could protest. She slipped the coins among her dresses and reached for the mask. He tsked.

Maybe no one would recognize her. She'd only been back for the Season twice since Matthew's death; she led an isolated life by design. And who would expect to see Lady Elinor Hargrove in a place like this? Who would admit to having seen her, if they did?

Her reasoning was not sufficient to calm the icy dread that gripped her as she returned, smiling, to Edward Foyle's side.

“Where shall we walk?” she asked. If Lord Farleigh spotted them, perhaps he could intervene. But should he? This would likely be her best chance to get information from Foyle. And one that Lord Farleigh would certainly not allow her.

“Let me worry about that,” Foyle said. He guided her down the stairs. The carpet was soft against her bare feet, and the air warm enough that she did not miss a pelisse or
proper clothing for physical comfort's sake, but it took every ounce of her will not to wrap her arms around herself to conceal her body. Her hair was disheveled, and the state of her chemise left little doubt as to what sort of activity the afternoon had witnessed.

She imagined her mask. Cold and pale, only the slightest hint of a smile to give it an expression. Serene, knowing, amused that you might even
think
of passing judgment. She was not Elinor Hargrove; she was not even a mortal being. She was a creature of imagination and promise, one that no one could touch.

She held onto that, and perhaps it showed. The men they passed in the hall looked at her not with judgment but with a distant kind of desire. One that knew it could not have her.

They exited the house at the rear doors, out onto the sun-drenched lawn that sloped down toward sparse trees. Foyle steered her westward, toward a large greenhouse. “I hope you might indulge me, Dove,” Foyle said. “I find that I have been thinking about you since we spoke. You asked me about India. I told you I didn't care for it.”

“And was that a lie, Mr. Lamb?” Elinor asked.

“Oh, I despised the place,” Mr. Foyle said. “But not all of it. Here.” They had reached the greenhouse, and he opened the door to usher her in. She slipped inside. The summer heat was still more intense within, but the light more diffuse. The glass panes were somewhat clouded with condensation and the faint green of plant matter. Inside were row upon row of wooden tables, bursting with every manner and color of plant. Blooms rose exuberantly toward the ceiling, or trailed toward the ground. Plants with thick, meaty stalks or stems fine as thread.

“This is beautiful,” Elinor said. It was beautiful chaos, and it took a moment to begin to pick out the individual blooms in the madness.

“I want to show you one in particular,” Foyle said. He took her hand and slotted it into the crook of his arm again. She swallowed against her revulsion and let him lead her toward the back of the greenhouse. “Here,” he said, and pointed.

A large clay pot hosted a plant that reached past shoulder-height, supported by narrow stakes. Its leaves curled away from a half-dozen central stalks. At its peak were the most striking flowers Elinor had ever seen. They had wide-spaced petals of the brightest yellow at their bases, lightening to rich scarlet at their tips. The edges of each petal were rippled, so that they looked like tongues of flame, curling inward.

“There is beauty in India,” Foyle said. “Though it was sometimes easy to miss.”

“What is it called?” Elinor asked. She reached to touch one of the blossoms. Foyle caught her wrist.

“It can be quite irritating to the skin,” he warned her. “I first heard it called senganthal,” Foyle said. “In English we call it the glory lily or the flame lily. You can see why.”

“Did you bring this from India, then?” Elinor asked.

“No. I had it brought, on Monsieur Beauchene's request. He collects beautiful things other than women, on occasion,” he said with a wry smile. “It has medicinal properties as well. But like most things that you wish to heal you, it has its deadly side. I knew of a woman once who killed herself by consuming it.”

“Accidentally?” Elinor asked.

He was staring at the flower. He hadn't removed his hand from her wrist, hadn't moved. “Her husband had died,” he said. “And her children, too. Seven of them. Some illness. She alone was spared. I suppose it was too much for her, to be left alone.”

“That's terrible,” Elinor said.

“Yes, it is. Isn't that just like the world, though? To create something beautiful and then to contort it into something foul.” He dropped her hand at last. She rubbed her wrist surreptitiously, as if she could rid herself of the lingering sensation of his touch.

“You sound as if you were hurt there,” Elinor said. She made her voice a different sort of invitation now. Not an invitation to pleasure, but to unburdening. “Who did you lose, Mr. Lamb? Who broke your heart so?” Biting back distaste, she brushed the hair lightly from his brow.

“She was my wife,” he said. She stayed silent. He had been waiting for someone to ask, she realized. Hoping for someone to pry. Was he truly wounded, and in need of comfort? Or did he merely enjoy the sort of attention such revelations of heartbreak might bring? “Her name was Marie. I loved her more than the sky loves the stars. And I lost her.”

“She died,” Elinor said softly. “You poor thing.”

“Yes, she died. But for weeks before that, months, it was as if—” He paused. “She was hardly alive. Hardly sane. She seemed to fold in on herself. She seemed to see things that no one else could, things that terrified her.” He sounded genuinely distraught. Could he be telling the truth? Could he have loved her? She'd written that he blackmailed her, but what he was describing was a kind of madness. Perhaps she'd been wrong. Perhaps she'd been delusional after all.

They couldn't have been wrong about Foyle—could they?

Foyle sighed. “She was troubled before the child was born, but after it was like she had shattered.”

Elinor froze. She struggled to keep her expression relaxed. In as casual a tone as she could muster, she said, “You have a child?”

“What? No. It wasn't mine. We weren't married yet when she— She was a widow,” he said briskly. “And the child was stillborn. Tragic, of course. But she was hardly the only woman whom such a fate befell.” He frowned at the lily. His performance had fractured. There was more anger in his voice than sorrow, now, and Elinor's suspicions of his sincerity faltered. “I could have helped her, you know. If she'd let me. But she didn't. And then she was dead. Cholera.” He looked at Elinor, eyes narrowing. “Why are we speaking about my dead wife? You don't care.”

“Of course I do,” Elinor said, smiling sweetly. “If it concerns you, it concerns me.”

He planted his hands on her hips. His thumbs dug in by her hip bones, almost painfully, and the fabric of her chemise bunched beneath his palms. “No, you don't,” he said.
“You're just a silly whore, playing at sympathy in the hope that I'll give you a few extra coins after I fuck you.”

She slapped him.

It was instinct. Her whole life, no one would have dreamed of saying anything half so horrible to her. A dozen men would have offered to duel him on her behalf if he'd said it at the parties she
usually
attended. But she wasn't at one of those parties. She stared at him in horror as he put a hand to his reddened cheek. A chuckle rumbled through his chest.

“The dove has talons,” he said. “Careful that she doesn't scratch you, Beauchene.”

Elinor turned stiffly. Beauchene, still in his lurid green cravat, lounged near the entrance of the greenhouse.

“Monsieur,” she said with exaggerated civility, and curtsied. A mockery of the form, given what she was wearing, but she refused to be cowed.

“I apologize for the interruption,” Beauchene said. “I can come back another time, if you wish.” He directed this not to Elinor, but Foyle, who only grunted and shrugged. Beauchene beamed. “Excellent. Now, my dear. Perhaps you'll come with me.”

“I should be getting back to Mr. Egret,” she said.

“That can wait. I have asked a more talented artist than myself to complete our little project,” he said. His eyes trailed up and down her form.

She eyed the doorway. She might be able to slip past him. But the hard glint in Beauchene's eye told her that would be pointless. Beauchene might have rules for other men, but this was his house. And she—she was no one. A prize to be handed from one man to another.

She walked to him. His fingers closed around her wrist, dry and cool, and pulled her forward. Back out toward the sunlight. She looked back at Foyle. He watched her go with an expression she could not quite read. Disappointment?

Whatever it was, she was glad to leave it behind. As glad as she was afraid of what lay ahead.

*   *   *

Colin thought that fresh air would clear his head, but a circuit of the grounds had only left him scowling at every entwined couple—or trio, or quartet—he came across. He had coaxed himself from a dark mood into a black one by the time he reached the sculpture garden, and he slung himself down on a bench in the shade, thinking maybe he'd have a good brood. Brooding required solitude, however, and he was not to get any today. A woman had spotted him, and came across the grass at a light if purposeful gait, settling herself on the bench beside him.

“I'm not looking for company,” Colin said.

“When a man comes to our house and shuns company, it is a sign that something has gone quite wrong,” the woman said. She had the trace of a French accent. Madame Beauchene, then. He looked at her with new interest. “Is the entertainment not to your liking?”

“It's a personal matter,” Colin said.

“My favorite kind,” she said with a little laugh. She had a commanding presence. More than that, it was as if the whole world had shrunk down to the two of them as soon as she began to speak. A remarkable gift, and one that Colin distrusted instinctively. “Tell me your troubles, Mr. Egret.”

“I didn't realize we'd been introduced,” he said.

“I know everyone here,” she replied with a dismissive toss of her head. “I am entirely familiar with you.” She slid her arm through his, a friendly gesture shaded toward possessive. He restrained himself from pulling away. “Did you know that your brother-in-law is here as well?” she asked.

“Which one?” he asked. “The dead one, or the one who's traipsing around Spain?”

“Edward Foyle,” Madame Beauchene said. “You spoke to him earlier. I wasn't certain you recognized him.”

“I've never met the man,” Colin said. Damn and double damn. If she was telling him this, he could hardly pretend not to know who Foyle was. Had she told Foyle as well?
What the hell sort of game was she playing? “Nor do I care to.”

“A pity. You would have so much to talk about,” Madame Beauchene said.