Frovtunes’ Kiss (34 page)

M
oira, please open the door.”

Please go away
. She turned her face into her pillow. She had tried rising this morning, intent on going down to breakfast and greeting the others with a brave face. She had even managed to change into a morning frock, braid her hair, and pin it into a fair imitation of a respectable chignon. But then her fortitude had deserted her in one great wave of despondency. She had drawn the curtains closed and crawled back in between the bedclothes.

At Graham's entreaty now, she said nothing, hoping he would believe her asleep. Or perhaps simply give up as he'd done last night after knocking at her door for some minutes and begging an entry she had found no stamina to grant.

He tapped again. “I thought you might be hungry. I've brought up a tray.”

She didn't want anything. Not food, not company, not solace. She certainly didn't want any of his teasing affection, his playful lovemaking, no, nor those enchanting dimples that tricked the unsuspecting woman into forgetting everything she knew to be true and right.

Then again, what had she ever known? About anything? All her assertions about family bonds and loyalty amounted to…what? Nothing. Nothing laced with bitterness. And she wished to be left alone to savor the taste of it.

Everett Foster had been her father nearly all her life. She had loved him. Trusted him. Believed him the finest and truest of men. Her mother had believed so, too. Never in their wildest imaginings could they have predicted his betrayal nor his leaving them virtually penniless.

Yet the birth of his illegitimate son had accomplished exactly that.

What a perfect deceit Everett had wrought on the naïve females in his life, a duplicity all the more ghastly for the love he had taken from them, valued so little, and squandered.

Gone. Not just the money but
everything-everything!-
she had ever believed in. Staked her life upon.

“Moira?”

Why
wouldn't he go away?

And yet…the thought of Graham hovering outside her door holding a tray of food somehow penetrated the anger and self-pity and roused her conscience. She rose up on an elbow.

“Thank you,” she called out. “It was sweet of you, but I'm not hungry.”

There, perhaps now he'd stop haranguing her. She dragged the lace-edged bed linen higher over her shoulders.

“But you can't have eaten since our tea with Mrs. Higgensworth yesterday, and I know you consumed but little then.”

Flinging the bedclothes aside, she sat up to better project her voice to the other side of the door. “That is precisely when I lost my appetite.”

And the joy of every memory she'd ever held dear.

“We all missed you at supper last night. Me most of all,” he added, his murmur barely audible through the bulky paneling.

She heard a thump and could only imagine he'd dropped his forehead to the door, his face bowed over the unwanted breakfast tray in his hands. Her conscience raked like the claws of a stretching cat, emerging whether the creature willed or no.

“Letty's been asking after you.”

Oh, all
right
. She went to the door and flung it wide—and barely managed to catch the tray as he stumbled forward. She thrust the burden onto a nearby bureau and attempted to step around him. He moved too quickly for her. He caught her hand, drew her against his chest, and fastened his arms around her.

“Don't.” She shut her eyes to his handsome face, those dimples that danced, not with humor now, but bewilderment.

Still, they had their effect on her, rousing sensations and images that made her want to slink back beneath the bedclothes. Graham licking her wrist, jostling against her in the coach, tugging her through Benedict Ramsey's drawing-room window. Always, always he'd flashed those teasing grins, those devastating dimples that made her melt. Until at last at Monteith Hall…good heavens …where she had…they had…

Oh, they should
not
have.

Groaning, she stopped struggling in Graham's hold and shut her eyes. How could she have forgotten, even temporarily, the very thing he had made so obvious from the beginning? Courting her was a game to him, an adventure, like hunting treasure. It wasn't his fault; it was simply his nature.

But not
her
nature, at least never before. She'd been raised on certain principles, taught to observe the strictest propriety. Guided by example in the proper behavior between men and women. Her mother…her stepfather …oh, yes, hadn't their lessons been exemplary?

Feeling ill, she slid her hands between them, palms flat to Graham's chest. “Please release me.”

He hesitated an instant, his arms tightening with a possessiveness that threatened her resolve. Then his arms fell away. “Why have you been avoiding me?”

“I'm not.” No, not avoiding
him
. Avoiding her own disastrous impulses. He was rash, reckless. He brought out the same in her.

No, more than that. He occupied her heart so entirely her joints ached from the restraint of not wrapping herself tightly around him even now.

Only what she had learned yesterday prevented it. Only the replacement of a lifetime's belief system with the hard, ugly truth held her in place. There were
reasons
people tended not to marry for love—logical, sensible reasons. Because if someone who seemed as steady and sure as Everett Foster could do what he did…

“Please excuse me. I wish to visit with your sister. You said she asked for me.”

He reached behind him and swung the door closed. “You'll visit with me first.”

An unsettling sensation fluttered in her stomach. She stared past his shoulder to the sealed door, afraid of what might come out of her mouth if she risked speaking. Afraid, too, of the silence sizzling between them as he stared down at her.

“I understand you're upset,” he said at length. “But it's no reason to shut me out.”

“The door was unlocked.”

A dimple flashed, then disappeared as he worked his jaw. “I don't believe in barging in uninvited.”

Yes, as she had done at Monteith Hall, sneaking to his room and challenging him, throwing herself at him.

She groaned again.

He had been honest, had told her quite plainly he couldn't stay. Wouldn't stay. He hadn't lied as many men would have done, professing eternal love and making promises he had no intention of keeping.

The shame of her behavior roared through her, making her dizzy. Those things they did…things he had learned in Egypt. From how many Egyptian women? How many Egyptian by-blows awaited the return of their English father? Or had he remembered to use a sheath then, too?

Hand pressed to her forehead, she turned her face away. He caught her chin on the ends of his fingers, sending a mutinous tendril of heat coiling through her.

“I've no wish to upset you further,” he said. “But Shaun and I both agree the facts concerning your stepfather's codicil don't add up. Not by a long shot.”

“You told Mr. Paddington about…” She yanked her chin away. Anger and disgrace rose like bile to burn her throat. On shaky legs she groped her way to the chaise beneath the window. “How could you?”

He followed and crouched at her feet. “If anyone can help unravel this mystery, it's Shaun. And I trust him completely.”

“What mystery? All is revealed. And now it's time I went home.” Home, where she would be safe from the temptation of him. She covered her face with her hands, speaking into her palms. “I'm going as soon as I decide what to tell my mother.”

“Don't be in such a hurry.” He cupped her knee, the warm weight of his palm eliciting a shiver. Perhaps misinterpreting her tremor as a sign of distress, he anchored his other hand at her hip and held her firm. That only made the gathering ache sharper.

“There's more to the story than we've learned thus far,” he said as if unaware of the turmoil he created inside her as his fingers splayed over her hip, stroked her knee. “Otherwise, why all the secrecy? Why was Smythe murdered, the office robbed? Where is Pierson, his clerk? And why did Susan Oliphant lie about knowing your stepfather?”

She focused on his words and tried to ignore the yawning desire begging to be filled. “Isn't it obvious? My stepfather must have sworn her to secrecy. He didn't want my mother learning of his betrayal. As for Mr. Smythe and the robbery, a dreadful coincidence.”

“No, Moira. That's one too many coincidences for my palette. Are you forgetting Nigel? You yourself questioned how an expert rider was thrown from his horse in fine weather.”

Why was he tormenting her with particulars that no longer mattered? Why were his fingertips kneading her flesh with such rhythmic tenderness? She brushed a lock of hair from her damp forehead. “So what do you suggest?”

“I think we should pay Miss Oliphant another visit. Confront her with our questions.”

“No.” She pushed his hands away and leapt to her feet, but he just as quickly pushed to his, blocking escape.

“Why shouldn't we?”

“Because the inheritance belongs to her son. If you wish to help, go back to the bank and insist the transfer of those stock accounts be concluded immediately. I shudder to think of Michael or any child living in the kind of squalor I saw yesterday.”

“What about you and your mother?”

“My stepfather dishonored us in the most unforgivable way, and yes, I'm confused and so angry I could smash something. But I will not take it out on the child. It's over.” Her hand shot out in a gesture of finality that sent him flinching out of the way.

“The arrangements my stepfather spoke of before he died were for his family—his
other
family. He wished to secure the well-being of his son, his only natural child.” Her voice broke somewhere between those last two words, ripped wide open upon a gush of emotion she could not contain.

She shoved at the arms he attempted to put around her. He encircled her nonetheless, encompassing her struggling limbs with his strength, holding her when she would have run from the room. “I must go. You can't keep me against my will.”

His hold gentled, but his arms remained around her. “Am I?”

She might have pushed free if she tried. But it was more than simply his arms holding her. It was his very essence—that high-seas, open-air, fresh vitality that permeated her senses and stole her breath. Her heart stumbled in its beat and she clung, fistfuls of linen shirt caught tight between her fingers, her face pressed to the strong column of his neck.

“Moira.” He buried a hand in her hair, tilted her face to his. Her gaze lighted on features gone taut with some powerful emotion akin to fury, intense and fearsome…but beautiful and irresistible, too. “Don't push me away. You need me now. You know you do.”

She did. God help her, she did. That was the worst of it. Needing him not just now, but for an always she couldn't have.

Despite her shattered, unworkable heart, her body didn't seem to care about the future or what would never be. Inescapable need compelled her onto her toes and sent her mouth seeking his.

His lips both hard and warm, breathed life in and out of her, and tumbled her thoughts until there seemed nothing beyond the flame of their kiss. Her fingers tangled in his hair as she groped for more, as her feet suddenly left the floor and the world tipped precariously.

Together they fell onto the chaise. She lay beneath him. Her mind flooded with images from that night at Monteith, but she no longer wished to shove those memories away. No, she would savor them, indulge them, give them life. Desire ruled her, set her breasts aflame, and pooled hotly between her thighs.

When his hand slid along her leg in search of her hems, she helped him yank skirts and petticoats aside, helped him fumble with his buttons. Within her straddled thighs, she guided him, using her hands and little cries muffled against his lips to assure him of what she wished. She felt him against her, smooth, burning, prodding for entry.

Then suddenly, horribly, he went still.

She opened her eyes to find him staring down at her, his gaze fierce, wild, barely that of a civilized gentleman. “We shouldn't be doing this.” His voice was raw, strangled.

“Why
shouldn't we?” She tried to pull him down, recapture his lips. He wouldn't budge despite her repeated tugs. The desire rippling through her turned painful, became a sharp-edged vortex of disappointment. “Whom are we hurting? What laws are we breaking that haven't been broken millions of times already?”

“Not this time, Moira. Not like this.” He rolled off her, secured his trousers, and sat up. Extending a hand, he helped her upright, then compounded her confusion by smoothing her skirts over her legs as if she were some wanton piece of baggage. “It isn't right.”

The irony of his comment sent a chuckle to her lips. “Was it any more right at Monteith? What difference—”

Realization silenced her and brought her to her feet. One thing had been different at Monteith Hall. The sheath. He didn't have one now. They would have risked making a child.

“I see.” Her voice fell flat and cold in the quiet room. “I wouldn't wish you to compromise your scruples, Lord Monteith. If you'll excuse me.”

Yes, she wished to leave before he saw the pain etched on her face, before—heaven forbid—tears should begin to fall. It shouldn't hurt so much, his pulling back and being sensible, reducing their lovemaking to such rational terms. If she became with child, he would be trapped. He would lose the life he loved so much.

No, it shouldn't hurt. He had been honest from the start. Dear God, but it did. It galled her, too, even if she couldn't explain exactly why. Escape beckoned at her closed door, but he grasped her arm before she took many steps.

He spun her around to face him. “Why are you angry? I stopped us for your sake, not my own.”