A Midsummer Night's Sin (16 page)

“Aunt Claire is closeted with her prayer books, alternating between hope and tears. But Mama is quite comfortable,” Regina said, summoning a smile from somewhere inside her. “She actually told me tonight that being here is like widowhood without the widow’s weeds or any feelings of sorrow. I hadn’t realized it, but I can’t remember a time Papa didn’t keep Mama close to him. He has never left either of us in the country
when he had business here in London. And it turns out that we did the right thing in bringing only Hanks with us. Mama’s dresser, Fellows, according to Mama, is one of Papa’s spies. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I am worried. Mama always seemed to be able to supply herself with…with her strong spirits. Do you suppose my father
likes
that she drinks? That he has made certain that she always has a ready supply?”

Puck nodded his head shortly to the two footmen sitting in the foyer, dismissing them for the night, and turned to mount the stairs. “What do you think, Regina? I don’t know the man.”

“I don’t think I do, either.” Regina pressed a hand to her mouth for a moment, coming to a decision. “Am I an unnatural daughter to dislike him so much? Am I so desperate for answers that I’d even briefly entertain the idea that— No, it’s ridiculous. Impossible.”

Puck squeezed her hand. “The only impossible thing in this world right now, Regina,” he said as they hesitated in the upstairs hallway, “is the thought of leaving you alone tonight.”

She opened her mouth, attempted to speak, to say something, anything. But no words came to her lips.

“I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re under considerable duress, and I’d be a rotter of the first order to take advantage of that. Your nerves are rubbed raw, with good reason, and your mind is racing every which way. Everything, every moment, seems desperate, either moving too quickly or dragging too slowly. You wouldn’t know this, but you are a soldier the night
before the battle, caught between fear and anticipation, your every sense heightened. If I look reasonable to you, Regina, it’s because you know I understand your anxiety. But people do foolish things at times like this. Believe things they wouldn’t give a second thought to at some other time. I’m not the man for you. I’m only the man who’s here.”

“And I’m only the woman who’s here?” she asked him quietly.

He slowly shook his head, still gazing deeply into her eyes. “No. I won’t lie and say that. Even though I should.”

Her breath caught in her throat. He was so dear. So honest. So much better than he thought he was, than the world thought he was.

“I don’t want to be alone tonight, Puck,” she said at last. “You’re not simply the man who’s here. You know that. Tell me you know that. Please.”

“This can’t work, Regina. All I can do is ruin your future.”

“Isn’t that my decision? Can’t we just talk some more, at least. I won’t sleep, in any case. Not thinking what I’m thinking. What…what happens after that isn’t something we need to discuss.”

“I shouldn’t have done what I did this afternoon. You’re vulnerable, and I took advantage.”

At last Regina felt some stirrings of anger. “Oh yes, I can see that. Such a simple little goose, that Regina. A longing look, a few kisses, and she will allow any lib
erty. Clearly, Mr. Blackthorn, you have a duty to save her from herself.”

Puck smiled. “I’ve never been much for duty.”

He took her hand once more, and, together, they walked down the dim hallway and entered her bedchamber.

W
HAT HE WAS THINKING
was criminal, on so many levels.

She was just as he’d told her. Vulnerable. Young, just awakening to what it was to be a woman rather than a girl. Her cousin had gone missing, most probably to a terrible fate impossible to conceive in its brutality. Her mother clearly was not a stable woman, not the sort Regina could turn to for advice.

She was in his house, beneath his roof. The bastard’s roof. There could be no future for them; she knew it, he knew it.

All he could bring her was disgrace and her father’s wrath.

All she could bring him was a desire unfulfilled or a memory that would never leave him, with the empty years stretching in front of him, his heart forever lost.

God, how his mother would swoon with it, enjoy the drama of it all. She’d think it all delicious. And yes, inevitable. She’d always liked Shakespeare’s tragedies best. As Juliet, she must have died on the stage five hundred times. Lovely as she still was, in the past few years an audience couldn’t be faulted for thinking her Juliet now succumbed to old age.

Puck smiled at the thought and then mentally
slapped himself. Even when he was serious, deadly serious, there was always that spark of ridiculousness in him, trying hard to get out. It was a curse.

He watched as Regina used a thin taper to light more candles around the room. The full moon shone in the windows, the draperies not yet closed. Did her maid forget to draw the draperies, or did Regina always sleep with the drapes pulled back over the sheer silk curtains? Did she like to watch the stars or wake to greet the morning sun?

He knew so little about her. She’d waved away the beets tonight at dinner. She didn’t like beets. She might like the morning sun on her face.

She loathed or feared her father. Or both.

She felt, tasted, like Heaven.

They could flee to Paris. To America. He had the money; she’d want for nothing. He’d take the mother, if she insisted. The mother, the maid, her pet spaniel, if she had one. He’d go anywhere, dare anything, to have her.

And he knew nothing about her.

Was love insanity, or insanity love?

And did either condition explode into a man’s life in the space of only a few days?

She walked over to the small fire and sat down on the hearth rug, her virginal dressing gown puddling around her, the firelight catching in her hair, casting warm shadows over her perfect features, her flawless skin. She looked across the room at him and smiled, in
embarrassment, in trepidation and with some hidden sorrow.

Yes. The answer to his question was yes. Yes, it could. Full-blown. Without rhyme or reason.

“There are any number of chairs in this pile,” he said as he joined her on the floor. “But you’re right. We’ll be most comfortable here. Naughty children, gathering around the fire when they should be in bed, fast asleep. But you’ve already said that you won’t sleep. Tell me the thoughts you’re so certain won’t allow sleep.”

“Your brother said something tonight, just before you arrived.” She looked down at her entwined fingers as she spoke. “He said that the person we’re looking for is a man without heart. A man who sees others as devices to pad his pockets. Without morals or scruples. A man uncaring of another person’s pain. A man solely interested in profit.”

Puck nodded his head. “I agree. It takes a special sort of snake to do what this man, these men, are doing. On both ends of the sale.”

“And if that person…if that person owned his own shipping company?” She looked up at him, tears swimming in her eyes.

Puck was shocked that she’d come to his same conclusion, and didn’t bother to dissemble. “You’d accuse your own father?”

“Now do you see why I could never sleep tonight? The moment Jack said the words, I could see my father’s face as clearly as if he were suddenly in the room with us. Jack had just described my father to me.”

“Owning ships doesn’t automatically make the man a suspect…?.”

“He has a business partner,” she added quickly, and she could hear a desperate hope in her voice. “Mr. Harley. Benjamin Harley. I’ve only met him a single time, when Papa took me to London Docks to show me his latest purchase, a huge trading ship he said would make the shareholders in the East India Company swoon in jealousy.”

“And your opinion of Mr. Harley?” Puck was doing his best not to react or to overreact.

Her shoulders sagged. “A cipher,” she said sadly. “But much better educated than Papa. He speaks to the…the customers, I suppose they’re called. Oh, and he keeps the books and ledgers. Nobody but Papa and Mr. Harley may see them. Know the cargo, the destinations. Papa said that’s because he trusts no one. Pirates, you understand. He’s very leery of pirates.”

“He’s leery of something,” Puck said ruminatively. “When he took you to see his new ship, was it berthed at London Docks?”

She bit her bottom lip. Nodded. “But, no, I don’t remember more than that. I was much younger, and the London Docks had just barely opened. There was so much noise, so many people…?.”

He took her hands in his. They were cold, and trembling. “Regina, listen to me. It’s a grand leap from having a father who wants you to marry well to believing he…dabbles in white slavery.”

“I know. I want to be convinced I’m wrong, seeing
an easy answer because we need an easy answer. Not that it’s easy to think of one’s own father as so evil. And it’s Miranda, Puck. Surely he wouldn’t countenance such a terrible thing. But…”

Puck leaned closer to her. “Yes. But?”

“He sent the Runners north. Remember? He told me he was certain Miranda had been kidnapped, even said she was probably taken by…by white slavers. He was…quite graphic in his description of what would happen to her. Yet he ordered my uncle to send the Runners north, saying she’d eloped. Why would he do that? He told me it was to spare my aunt and uncle pain, but—well, his words didn’t ring true to me when he said them, and they don’t now.”

“I would think, for the sake of his family, if you’re right, if your father is somehow involved, he’d have found some way to have Miranda freed once he realized she’d been taken. No, I can’t see a man knowingly sending his own niece into such horror.”

“She’s in her second Season and with signs of needing a third, as she has no dowry. Papa finances everything. The town house, Miranda’s gowns, the horses. My uncle’s gambling debts while he’s in town. My cousin Justin’s gambling debts. Everything. He’s often told me he wishes us shed of them, and he will be once I’m wed to a title. He plans to cut them off without a bent farthing, or at least that’s what he says. Their…their usefulness to him will be over, you see. Even…even my mother. She just told me he’s threatened her with a madhouse, once I’m married.”

Puck was fast running out of reasons not to think Regina’s father could be a suspect in the disappearances. In any number of crimes, the worst of them his treatment of his own family.

“Your father has a warehouse at London Docks?”

“Yes. I do remember the sign. It was fresh and new. Everything was fresh and new. Hackett and Harley Company. The sign was two Hs, rather curled into each other.”

“And you’d feel better if I were to take a drive down there tomorrow, to take a look at this building?”

“I feel like a terrible, unnatural daughter. But yes, I would also feel better if you did that. As long as I can come along.”

“You’re in the country, remember? You and your mother and your aunt? You can’t be seen by anyone who might recognize you.”

“You took me along tonight,” she pointed out, not unreasonably.

“In the dark, and you remained inside the coach. What if your father is on the docks?”

“I’m not the only one he might recognize, if he’s there. He knows about you, Puck, remember? He’d have to wonder why you were there.”

“He won’t recognize me,” Puck said before he could think, and immediately regretted his words.

“Oh? And why won’t he recognize you? Oh, wait. Didn’t you say something about your valet visiting a costumer? You’re going to wear a
costume?
Yes, of
course you are! Did he get one for me, as well? Look at you! I can see it in your eyes. He did, didn’t he?”

“It’s the heat from the fire. Temporarily muddled my brains, so that they forgot to put a brake on my tongue,” Puck ruminated, sighing. “Yes, yes, Gaston managed to procure a few costumes for you, as well. God, hanging’s too good for me. Even Jack wouldn’t go so far.”

“Then you’re going to allow me to accompany you?” She leaned forward and touched his knee. “Say it, Puck. Say, yes, I will take you along.”

He took her hand and raised it to her mouth. “I want you to know that I understand how you feel, Regina. I tried to imagine one of my brothers being taken and how I would dare anything to find him, bring him home safely. If someone told me no, I’d simply find my own way. But, damn it, Regina, I’m a man, and you’re—”

“And what? I’m helpless? Hopeless? Bound to get in the way?”

He smiled and feigned a slight ducking motion, as if she might strike him. “That last one, yes.”

Her shoulders sagged. “At least you’re honest. I can’t shoot or fence. I’ve never…punched anyone. But surely there’s some way I can be helpful.”

Again, Puck smiled. “No, no, sweetings, I’m not laughing at you. I’m remembering something that happened last year, with my brother and his Chelsea. She also wanted to help in a…a certain situation. I finally understand why Beau was so set against it. He was like a bear with a sore tooth the entire time, I swear it. Although, in the end, she performed rather well.”

“Did she have to shoot, fence or punch anyone?”

“I know what you’re saying, Regina. No, she didn’t. But just because Beau was so befuddled by Chelsea’s charms that he’d allow such a thing doesn’t mean that I— Bloody hell, I just walked straight into that one, didn’t I?”

“You did?” Regina asked, but her eyes betrayed her feigned innocence. They were nearly dancing with glee.

“If I say yes, will you agree to obey my every order the instant it’s given, not ask questions, not fight me in any way?”

She nodded furiously, a child agreeing to the medicine if the sugarplum reward was included in the promise.

“And you’ll be able to sleep now?”

Her eyes were the windows to her soul. He saw the sudden hurt, the confusion. The question. The—God help them both—desire.

He reached out and cupped her cheek in his palm. “Yes, sweetings, I feel it, too. A sadness, deep as any ocean. An emptiness that needs filling, even as we’d never, either of us, felt such an emptiness before. It could be the moment, Regina. That’s all it could be, a longing of the moment brought on by the events of these last days. Not even a full handful of too-short days, Regina. Hardly enough to know anything more about each other than that we could make magic together.”

“And it’s wrong to want that,” she whispered. “The magic?”

“Oh yes,” he said, moving closer to her. “It’s wrong. So very, very wrong…”

His mouth closed over hers as he gathered her to him, his arms going around her as he eased her down onto the hearth rug.

He kissed her, again and again, teasing at her mouth with his tongue and teeth, his hand working at the buttons that ran down the front of her virginal dressing gown.

Virginal.
There were ways. Ways he could have her, that she could have him, without physically taking her virginity. Leaving her intact for the man she would one day marry. He’d shown her one way that afternoon.

There were others.

He eased the dressing gown from her shoulders, exposing the thin night rail that was easily shifted to reveal her right breast to his touch. He cupped her fullness in his hand, teased at her nipple with his thumb. Caught her sigh of pleasure with his mouth.

She was perfection. Glory. And instantly responsive.

She flowered beneath his touch, her body soft and inviting, her nipple hardening, inviting further intimacy.

He pulled her up into a sitting position across his lap and kept his mouth on hers as he worked to free her night rail, tug it above her hips, so that he could reach up under its bunched-up hem to touch her bare belly.

Her bare buttocks, the weight of her against his manhood, roused him almost painfully. He wanted to be
inside her. Deep, deep inside her. He wanted her heat, her tightness.

But that was not to be.

She held on to him, her arm around his shoulder, her head pressed against him as he took her nipple into his mouth and began stroking it with his tongue, even as he moved his hand down over her belly and between her legs. She was an instrument of delight, and he was playing her. Bringing her pleasure.

She was breathing audibly now, her body wet and warm and welcoming to his every intimacy. He would take her to the brink, and then over…and then take himself off somewhere to figuratively slit his wrists, because he was very close to losing his mind.

Come on. Yes, that’s it, my darling, open for me. Feel good. I want you to forget the world, forget everything and just feel.

And then she was pushing at him, rolling off him and scurrying a few feet away to sit facing him, drawing her dressing gown around her, her knees bent, hugging herself, turning into a small ball of passion and…good God, fury.

“Regina? What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” she repeated, her voice shaking. “Do you think I’m an idiot? No, don’t answer that. I know you don’t think I’m an idiot. Maybe you simply think I’m selfish. Look at you. Prepared to be the martyr, or whatever it is you think you’re doing. Give her what she so blatantly asked for—that’s what you’re doing, isn’t it, Puck? All for me and nothing for
you. You’d have me, but you’d protect me.” She roughly wiped at her eyes with the backs of her hands. “Do you have any idea how that makes me
feel?
”

He very nearly opened his mouth and said
good?
But although the annals of history are filled with the stupid things men say when they’re attempting to be helpful, even he knew that was wrong.

Besides, she was already answering her own question.

“I’ll tell you how it makes me feel. Cheap. Tawdry. Selfish. Is that what you wanted me to feel, Puck?”