Devil in My Arms (18 page)

“I am too full of myself by whole,” he murmured, kissing her shoulder. “And so shall you be, lover mine.”

“Hilary,” she admonished halfheartedly at his crude comment.

“Admit it,” he told her, as his kisses moved to her cheek and the corner of her smile. “You like it when I talk like that.”

“I admit no such thing,” she said on a shaky sigh as his hand covered her breast. “But I will admit I am empty and aching.”

“Eleanor,” he said appreciatively, squeezing her breast. “You say the most lovely things.”

“I like that we talk,” she said suddenly, the thought popping into her head and out her mouth before she could censor it.

“We both talk quite a bit,” Hilary agreed. “But as we are both erudite and extremely intelligent, everything we say is worth listening to. Now lift up so I can do this
properly.”

She did as he asked, her hands on his shoulders. “I meant that we talk when we’re about to be intimate.”

“We are intimate right now,” he assured her. “I don’t roll around on drawing room sofas with women whom I am not intimate with.”

“With whom I am not intimate,” she corrected. She caught her breath as she felt his fingers seeking entrance.

“I find myself completely uninterested in a grammar discussion right now,” he said with a groan. “Good God, woman, I’m desperate to touch you.”

She moved against his hand with an embarrassing, breathy little moan. “I confess, I’ve been desperate since yesterday. You have turned me into the worst sort of wanton strumpet.”

“Good,” he whispered. He tilted her head down with a hand on the back of her head so their lips touched. “Less work for me,” he said against her mouth, and then he kissed her again.

She clung to him, so grateful that they could still have this, even if it was furtive and rushed and rather desperate. She wrapped her arms tightly around his shoulders, her hands buried in his hair, and she let him pleasure her. It was selfish and crude, and felt so divine. It was only minutes before the rapture took her, and flung her into that special place where all that mattered was her and Hilary and the things they did to each other. And when Hilary made her fly, she knew she couldn’t give this up. She wouldn’t.

She dozed briefly, her head on his shoulder, his hands running up and down her back. She woke when he moved under her. He stood up, holding her in his arms, her legs wrapped around him. “Where are we going?” she asked sleepily.

“Your room,” he said softly. “I’m too old to sleep sitting on a sofa with a woman draped on top of me.”

That woke her up. “You’re leaving?” She hadn’t meant to sound so pathetic, but it seemed to please him.

“No. We are simply going to sleep in your bed. We are not done by half.”

She blinked at him, sure she’d misunderstood. “What? How is that supposed to be avoiding a scandal?”

Hilary shrugged. “Roger can simply tell people I’ve moved into a guest room. We’ll say my house is infested with rats.”

She laughed. “Hilary, no one will believe that.” Hope sprang to life in her breast.
Could it work?

“Perhaps not, but it gives the appearance of respectability. The majority will refuse to believe that Roger allows me to ravish his demure sister-in-law under his roof. Our more carnal pleasures will be tacitly approved by your brother-in-law, God love him.”

“Hilary St. John,” she whispered against his lips while she toyed with the hair on his nape. “You planned this from the start. You are incorrigible. I don’t even want to hear what Roger has to say about this over breakfast tomorrow.”

He smiled and she felt it through her lips. “Trust a Devil to think ahead, my dear. Am I to take that as a yes?” he asked, letting her go so her legs slipped down his hips and legs until her feet rested on the floor.

“Yes,” she told him, taking everything one moment at a time. She’d deal with Roger tomorrow. She’d deal with it all tomorrow. Tonight, she was thanking her lucky stars that she held a Devil in her arms.

* * *

“What the devil are you still doing here?” Roger demanded the next morning in the breakfast room. He scowled as he marched over and took his seat. Harry followed, her eyes wide, and slid into her seat at the other end of the table. Hilary and Eleanor sat on opposite sides of the table, in the middle. They had deemed that wisest. Eleanor had even worn her most demure gown, a white one with blue piping and a high neckline, though it was her least favorite.

“Rats,” Hilary said dramatically. “My house is infested. I’m afraid I shall have to seek shelter here, old man. Do be a friend, and let me stay until they get rid of them.”

Roger rested one arm on the table and began to drum his fingers. He regarded Hilary with a raised brow. “And how long will that take?” he asked tightly.

Hilary seemed to think about it for a second or two. “Time will tell, Roger. Who
knows with rats?”

Roger closed his eyes briefly. “Yes,” he finally said, nodding, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Once you get a rat in the house, who knows how long it will take to get him out?”

Chapter Thirteen

Two weeks later

“I say, Sir Hilary,” Mr. Goode grumbled, “can’t we discuss this in a more private setting?”

They were in the Templetons’ drawing room. Hil regarded him with a forbidding expression. At least he hoped it was. It was hard to be forbidding when the infant was crying upstairs, Harry was yelling at young Mercy, and Eleanor was sitting in front of the window reading, the sun hitting her curls and her smooth cheek, creating a mysterious shadow between her breasts, just visible over the unobjectionable neckline of her dark-blue day gown.
Ah, it was the book creating the shadow
.

“Sir Hilary?”

At Mr. Goode’s querulous voice, Hil came back to the present and realized he was staring at Eleanor. “What?” he barked.

“You summoned me,” Mr. Goode said with undisguised exasperation. “To discuss my inquiry?”

“Of course I did,” Hil said sharply. “The fact is, Mr. Goode, I can find no letters from the tsar among your grandmother’s things. If she did indeed possess them, then she destroyed them prior to her death. I’m sorry.”

“Perhaps the tsar had someone steal them,” Mr. Goode insisted.

At that bit of nonsense, Hil let loose an incredulous snort. “Hardly. Even if the letters existed, even if they had an affair, even if you are distantly related—”

“Distantly?” Mr. Goode exclaimed. “He’s my grandfather!”

“Be that as it may,” Hil continued, “you have no claim on the throne of Russia, nor a claim to his fortune. Your legal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Goode, were married at the time of your father’s birth and Mr. Goode claimed the child as his. There is no evidence, other than your grandmother’s story, to corroborate such an alliance. To bring
accusations and unfounded rumor to the attention of the public would be seen as a nuisance not only by the tsar, but by the British authorities.” He adopted a very grave expression. “I fear you would end up in custody, Mr. Goode, were you to attempt to do so.”

“It’s bloody unfair,” he whined. “He owes me. Tupped my grandmother and left her breeding without a pence, while he goes off to be tsar. I should get something.”

“But you will not. Good afternoon, Mr. Goode.”

“Well, you’ve been absolutely useless,” Mr. Goode said unhappily, “and I will be sure to tell everyone so.”

“As long as you do so without mentioning the unfortunate scheme that brought you to me, go right ahead,” Hil told him. “It’s not as if you paid me for my assistance.” He waved at the footman. “See Mr. Goode out.”

Eleanor had been reading for the last several minutes without turning a page. Hil knew she’d been listening. “Well?” he asked her after the door closed.

She put down her book and gave him a smile. “Thank you. It’s for the best, you know. He only wanted money, and no good would come of the whole thing if you’d exhumed poor Mrs. Goode.”

“I agree,” he told her with a nod. “Which is why I chose that course of action. It had nothing to do with your desires.”

“Of course it didn’t,” she agreed, sitting back and reopening her book. “I never imagined that it did.” She gave him a little smile. “But thank you just the same.”

Roger burst into the drawing room. “Enough,” he told Hil firmly. “There are men building some sort of wall or something in the entry. And it’s my suppertime. I’ve had an awful day in court, and I demand my house back.”

“They are reconstructing a segment of wall from a recent crime,” Hil explained to him. “I am trying to determine the distance at which the killer stood when he fired his gun, based on the condition of both the wall and the bullet.”

Roger glared at him. “No one is going to fire any bullets in this house,” he said quite firmly. Then he held up a hand. “Don’t argue with me. I’m hungry.”

“And out of sorts, obviously,” Hil told him. “It’s for a presentation before the Royal Society next month,” Hil continued. “And I was not planning on firing the
weapons in here. We would move it outside for that, of course. But it was cold and I didn’t want to ask the men to work outside. It can wait until tomorrow.” He got up and walked over to the door. “Thank you, lads,” he told the workmen. Wiley had recommended them. They stood and tipped their hats. “We’ll pick this up tomorrow. Go see Wiley for today’s wages. Good work.” They immediately headed back to the kitchen.

“Wiley is in the kitchen?” Roger asked tightly. “Dare I hope my supper is still there, as well?”

“I had to put him somewhere,” Hil said. “He’s become rather essential to my work, much to my surprise. He handles all the day-to-day issues that come up.”

“He’s your secretary,” Roger told him. “You both need to just admit it and move on.”

“Nonsense,” Hil said. “I do not need a secretary.” He called after the last worker, “Do send Wiley up when you’re done. And tell him to bring my schedule book.” He refused to look at Roger as he said it.

“Roger,” Harry said from the top of the stairs. “Welcome home, darling.” She hurried down the steps with the baby in her arms, Mercy not far behind. Roger stepped over to wrap them all in a hug, a smile on his face.

Hil was hit with an unexpected pang of jealousy. He wanted Eleanor to do that. In his own home, he wanted her to hurry down the stairs as Harry had and greet him. The children were inconsequential. Well, not to Roger and Harry, but to Hil. He’d never really thought about them much to begin with. Hearing that Eleanor couldn’t have any had made no difference to him. He wanted Eleanor.

Suddenly her hand slipped through his arm and he jerked his head around to meet her gaze. “Are you through for the day?” she asked. She held up the book she’d been reading. It was a book on pistols. “I have some suggestions for your experiment.”

“I thought you were reading the book of poetry I bought you,” he said, surprised.

“You have bought me two, and I have read both, and will read them again and again,” she said with a smile. “Shakespeare and Robert Burns. Sir Hilary, you are a romantic at heart,” she teased. “But today I wanted to help with your project, so I stole a book from your stack over there.” She pointed to his makeshift desk, a table in the corner.

He wanted to hear her suggestions. It was a revelation. He’d never much cared for
the opinions of others. They were rarely as well thought out as his, nor did they usually have an effect on his opinion.

“We can discuss it after dinner,” she said, kissing his cheek. “I’m famished.” She turned to Roger. “I had Cook make your favorite dish. I read in the paper that the Cummings case was not going well. You must tell us about it at dinner, Roger. Perhaps Hilary can help.”

“Oh, Eleanor, I don’t know what I’d do without you,” Harry said gratefully. “Theo is teething and wouldn’t let Nanny touch him. I’ve been with him all day and hardly gave a thought to anything else.”

Eleanor waved her hand in the air. “It was nothing,” she said. “I knew you were busy.”

But it was something. Without meaning to, Eleanor and Hil had taken over Harry and Roger’s house. Hil frowned as he watched them mount the stairs with the children, headed no doubt for the nursery to drop them off in the nanny’s care before they came down for supper.

“I do believe it is time to leave,” Hil said. He put his hand over Eleanor’s on his arm and met her startled gaze. “As much as I have enjoyed my stay here, I cannot continue to hold Roger’s house hostage.”

Eleanor gave a little snort of laughter. “You do tend to dominate your surroundings.” There was something in her expression, however, that was not amused.

“Thank you,” he said, kissing the back of her hand and then replacing it on his arm. “The problem is, I am not ready to quit you yet.”

“Be careful,” she warned. “That was perilously close to a declaration.”

“That was avoiding the topic. How do you feel about it?”

There was a lengthy pause while she looked everywhere but at him. Finally she said, “I agree, it is time for you to go back home.” She said nothing else and they stood there awkwardly for a moment or two.

“Come now,” he chided gently. “This is not the time to become reticent. We have always spoken freely with one another, have we not?”

“I do not wish to quit you, either,” she said softly. “And yet I am not ready to make a decision that will bind me.”

He led her back into the drawing room and closed the door. Indicating the sofa, they both sat down, facing one another, but not touching. Hil’s heart was racing. He mustn’t push her away. She had become as important to his daily life as Wiley. He wasn’t exactly sure how it had happened. He’d always been a man who prided himself on his independence. He was a leader of men, unencumbered by emotional ties. He liked his freedom. Liked coming and going as he pleased, pursuing inquiries that interested him, never worrying about his own safety or that of others. Yes, he had friendships, close friendships. But that wasn’t the same as what he felt for Eleanor. He could simply think better when she was around. When she wasn’t, he too often found himself wondering where she was and what she was doing, and didn’t pay enough attention to his own endeavors. That would never do.