How to Handle a Scandal (24 page)

Her roof.
Hellfire Hall, despite its work-in-progress state, was a place she now yearned to call home. Fantasies of a little one wandering about in the wilds while she trailed behind had been teasing the edge of her intention to ignore the future and making it harder to be as carefree as she kept telling herself to be.

She wanted to share a baby with Tommy, to be a happy family together. Maybe, in some corner of her mind, she’d thought that once Tommy and she made love, he would come to care for her deeply enough that he wouldn’t want to leave. But Meg’s words were pushing her to be honest with herself, and she had to acknowledge that nothing Tommy had said or done had led her to believe he would change his mind and stay.

“Is there any tea for the master of the house?” Tommy said, startling her out of her thoughts.

“I didn’t see you come out,” Eliza said, glancing up. With the breeze teasing his black hair, he looked very handsome. “You can have some of the children’s tea, though it’s been sitting here for a bit.”

He poured himself some tea and sat down next to her on the bench, close enough that she could feel the warmth of his leg beside hers. They both looked across the lumpy ground toward the area in the distance the children had taken over for their ridiculous game of bowling. The balls couldn’t possibly roll straight, but that was probably a large part of the fun.

Tommy sipped his tea and made a face. “They won’t want this now. It’s nearly cold. Anyway, it looks as though they’re quite taken up with one another.” He plucked one of the iced tea cakes off the plate and popped the whole thing in his mouth, followed in quick succession by several more.

“The children all love the treasure hunt you arranged.”

When he just nodded absentmindedly, she said, “You’re good with children.”

He shrugged. “Perhaps it’s just that I’m still a boy at heart.”

She thought about that, and about how he loved adventure and had resisted settling down. Maybe there was something in this—but what did it matter? She couldn’t change who he was and what he wanted. But she also couldn’t seem to abandon the topic.

“I’m getting used to having Rex around,” she said. “Will the theatrical aunt be a good guardian for him, do you think?”

“Why shouldn’t she be? Or do you have something against theater people?”

“Of course not. It’s just that we don’t know her, and he doesn’t either. She might be odd or something.”

“Will it really matter that much if his aunt is odd?”

“How can you ask that? You, who had such a wonderful family? How would you feel if there had been no Will and Anna and Judith in your life? Or you’d never known your parents, whom you clearly loved?”

Something flickered in his eyes but was quickly extinguished. He crossed his arms. “Maybe you should admit that you can’t be reasonable on the subject of orphaned children because of the way you were sent away from home and then lost your family. And you didn’t like that school you were sent to, as I remember.”

“None of that has anything to do with Rex.”

He cocked his head. “Doesn’t it? Your father remarried, then sent you away soon after. You must have felt there was some connection between the two events.”

“Of course there was. I took his remarriage hard and behaved badly, making myself into a spectacle with the sailors in the port. Sending me away was the most sensible thing he could have done.”

“But not the most sensi
tive
,” Tommy said quietly. He softly brushed her cheek with his thumb. “Poor Eliza. You’ve taken all the trouble of that time onto yourself, haven’t you? As though it was your fault that the father you’d adored became distracted by a new wife.”

His words were seductive, but she knew better than to let herself slide into the ease they offered. “I behaved like a trollop,” she said, needing to speak the truth of what had happened. “I was childish and selfish, and my behavior threatened his livelihood. How could he have trusted me not to do something truly scandalous?”

“He could have talked to you. Did he?”

She shrugged. “I don’t think either of us was in a state for talking then.”

“But you must have been close, after all those years when it was just the two of you. I was too young to know your father, of course, but Will always spoke of him as being a good-hearted man who’d been something of a scandal himself when he was young. Your father would surely have understood you.”

A lump was growing in Eliza’s throat. How different would her life have been if, when her father had married Marian, he’d made sure that Eliza knew he still loved her and always would? If he’d made time to do special things with her, instead of giving every moment to his new wife?

She shrugged again. “I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t love me after all, or maybe he just didn’t love me after I stopped being a little girl.” She said the words carelessly, though they tore at an old wound. “I can’t blame him. He was a vicar, and I couldn’t stop myself from causing scandals that threatened his job.”

“Because you didn’t know what else to do. And at least your behavior got his attention.”

“Until it got me sent away.”

“And you never got to say all the things you needed to say to him.”

She looked away, wishing he hadn’t probed her about this. “Who knows if it would have mattered?”

“But perhaps it would have. For one thing, maybe you wouldn’t have felt that a few mistakes meant you had to make yourself into the Queen of Virtue. Your father was a man of God. He can’t possibly have meant you to go through life thinking you had to
earn
love.”

His words shook her. Was that what she’d been doing? What he’d said touched close to a place that felt vulnerable. But she couldn’t let him see that.

“Maybe,” she said, forcing a light tone. “It’s certainly benefitting you that I’ve abandoned virtue.”

He grinned.

In the distance, Susanna laughed, a tinkling sound. “What a minx,” Eliza said with a sigh. “I’m afraid poor Rex is already succumbing to her careless wiles.”

“Why ‘poor Rex’?”

“Because he’s got Marcus the earl’s son for competition.”

“Hmm,” Tommy said, not sounding particularly concerned.

Eliza looked at him. “Aren’t you concerned he’ll get his feelings hurt?”

“Not particularly. He’s thirteen. All he knows of the world is what he’s learning right now, which includes attraction, rejection, and perseverance. And,” he said, finishing his cold tea in one giant gulp and standing up, “what really concerns me is our project.”

She looked up at him from her seat on the bench, and her heart thudded at the spark glittering in his green eyes. “Our project?”

He took her hand and pulled her upright and bent his head close to hers. “The offspring project,” he said. “How are we going to make any progress with all these uninvited guests around?”

“It was
your
brother who invited them all.”

“True,” he said, and bent closer still to nuzzle her neck.

“Tommy!” she whispered sharply even as tendrils of desire curled through her body. “Someone will see. Think of the children right there on the lawn.”

“The ‘children’ are probably thinking about stealing kisses too. At least, the male ones are. And look, they’re going inside now anyway.”

He tugged her off the terrace and across the lawn toward the summerhouse. The ground was muddy and leaf-strewn, and she was wearing a pretty pair of cherry-colored satin slippers that matched her cherry silk gown.

The gleam in his eyes told her exactly where his thoughts were going, and already she felt fluttery. He was so irresistible, but now she was beginning to doubt the wisdom of what she’d set in motion with the baby plan. She made an effort to resist him. “My shoes are getting filthy, never mind that it’s chilly and the sun’s going down. We need to go back inside.”

His only reply was to bend down, put a hand behind her knees, and sweep her into his arms, hardly breaking stride at all. She squeaked. “What if someone’s looking out the window?”

“They’ll think I must be a considerate husband who’s trying to keep his wife’s shoes clean.”

She surrendered. Really, how was she supposed to resist him if she loved nothing better than surrendering to him?

They drew closer to the little stone summerhouse, whose trim had but a few flecks of whitewash left after years of rain and sun. Only two of the windows retained their panes.

“I had one of the footmen clear out the spiderwebs and pirate debris, which was mostly boxes full of empty rum bottles,” Tommy said. “Rather predictable of our brigands, though apparently there were also two crates of books, much of it poetry.”

“Really?” Eliza said. “Poetry? I’ll wager it went well with the rum. I quite like the idea of a group of rough men sitting around in small groups, reading sonnets to each other.”

“I’m sure that’s not what went on, but if it makes you happy to dream up such scenes, go right ahead. Though I think they were probably just using the books for kindling.”

He pushed against the door with his shoulder, and it emitted a loud groan as it swung inward. He carried her inside and kicked the door closed.

In the fading sunlight, the summerhouse was chilly and shadowy, but not dusty thanks to Tommy’s forethought, though a few leaves had obviously blown in after the cleaning. “It’s freezing in here,” she said.

“Well, yes,” he agreed, walking over to a wooden bench with an angled back over which had been slung a thick red blanket.

“Your bower,” he said, depositing her carefully on the bench.

“My bower is in a disgracefully neglected state.” She pulled the blanket around herself, which made her feel instantly warmer and rather like a queen. “Which isn’t to say that I don’t like it. It seems like the sort of place someone would write a story about. Maybe a neglected little girl used to come here. I’m imagining a time before the pirates came, when a girl came here with her faithful hound. As a girl, I always wanted a dog, but I never had one. I think I felt that dogs made everything better.”

He knelt down and pressed his lips against her collarbone, and his hot mouth lingered there while his palm made dizzying circles over her nipple that kindled warmth low in her belly.

“I’m sure Traveler would agree,” he murmured. “Fortunately, he slunk in to nap with Vic, so we won’t have to worry about him coming to look for us.”

Eliza began undoing the buttons on Tommy’s dark blue tailcoat. When it gaped open, she pulled it off him and laid it neatly across the back of the bench, where it was safe from leaf bits.

“I’ve been looking at you all day in that dress,” he said, “and thinking about touching what’s under it.” He put his hands on the hem and pushed the dark pink fabric upward, sliding his hands over her stockings.

She drew his shirt out of his breeches and pulled it over his head.

“It
is
a bit cold in here,” he pointed out.

“You’ll warm up.” Being with Tommy had given her a kind of confidence she’d never known before. Maybe that was because she knew he liked being with her, and that while he clearly found her attractive, his enjoyment of her was built on more than her beauty. They had a foundation of friendship.

She ran her hands over his bare chest, stealing the warmth of his skin even as the two of them generated more. The taut muscles of his abdomen twitched as her teasing touch crept downward. She leaned in to kiss his neck, but when she lifted her head, he captured her mouth in a demanding kiss.

“I’m dying to touch you,” he murmured against her mouth.

“You’ll live,” she said, even though she was dying for him to touch her too.

His hard length jutted against the fabric of his breeches, and she leaned closer to slip a hand between them and rub him through the fabric. He groaned and pressed into her hand, his breathing thick with desire.

She moved her hand to the waist of his breeches and loosened the fastenings, then pulled the opening wide. A little sound escaped her at the sight of him.

He laughed. “It’s not like you two haven’t met before.”

“Each time I forget a little what you’re like. However, there’s a lot to be said for not being a tender virgin lady any more,” she said, and wrapped her hand around him. He sucked in a breath as her palm swirled around the tip.

He caught her hands and lifted them away. “My turn,” he growled. “No arguments.”

“If you say so.” The thrill of anticipation ran through her.

He urged her legs wider apart so he could move between them, still kneeling. But he was tall, so his head was nearly at her height. Reaching both arms behind her, he began working on the little hooks that held her dress together. In what seemed like seconds he had her gown loose enough that he could slide his large, warm hands down her back, heating her skin against the cold air and making her shiver at the same time.

He pushed her gown off her shoulders and gathered her breasts in his hands, then buried his face against them.

“Eliza,” he said hoarsely. “I wish we didn’t have guests. I wouldn’t waste a minute not being with you. Not touching you.”

If he only knew how she treasured every second with him.

He kissed down her breast, taking her nipple in his mouth and nipping her, making her need him more each moment. He gathered the pile of her skirts up and pushed them along her thighs toward her hips. “I want to pleasure you every way I can, everywhere I can.”

He dipped his head lower, and she realized what he was going to do,
outside
.

“Wait—” she said, shyness overcoming her.

“Certainly not,” he said gruffly.

Ignoring her squirming, he kissed attentively up each inner thigh, until she was shuddering. And then he was at the soft heart of her. When he kissed her there, she nearly wept.

“Tommy,” she moaned as his tongue found all her most sensitive parts. He knew her, knew what would please her, knew when to push her. She would never find a man she cared for as much, she thought almost angrily, even as she rode the waves of hot desire.

Then he took his mouth away, and she nearly cried out from dismay until she saw that he was tugging himself free of his trousers.