The Clarendon Rose (40 page)

She shrugged.
 
“It had its moments, I suppose.
 
I didn’t have too many friends.
 
And certainly, we lived in a part of town where few of the wealthy ever stray.”
 
She sighed, thinking back to those distant memories.
 

“In the summer, after a long, hot day, the room stank with rotting meat from the shop below.
 
The rats were rampant, of course.
 
And roaches.
 
The place was filthy, no matter what Mother did to try to clean it up.
 
Sometimes she would just give up and let the dirt accumulate.
 
But, even when her energy for other things flagged, her obsession with ensuring that I would rise in the world and escape that horror never waned.
 
She taught me to read, and to speak properly.
 
She gave me the skills of a gently-bred young girl.
 
But the life wore her down.
 
By the time I was ten or so, she had grown ill.
 
I suspect that writing to the duke was an act of desperation, born of the knowledge that once she was gone, I would have no escape from the mire.
 
I believe that getting the letter from Uncle Charles, affirming that he would take me in, was one of the few happy moments of her later life.”

Again, the silence stretched out.
 
Then, she pulled back and gave him an uncertain smile.
 
“So, now you know all the sordid details.”

“Some of them, perhaps.
 
But no matter how much you tell me, I’ll never know what it must have been like for you as a child, having to live under those circumstances, with all that fear and uncertainty.”

She shrugged.
 
“It wasn’t all misery.
 
It had its moments of happiness, too.”
 
She grinned.
 
“And today, I had every reason to be glad of those experiences.”

“Tell me.”

And so, Tina told him about Big Ned’s long-ago lessons in street fighting and how they proved invaluable against the two would-be bullies who had hoped to take advantage of her.
 
She also told him of her escape from Pepridge’s two hired thugs.
 
“I don’t think the one fellow, Stan, was a bad sort at all.”

Clarendon nodded.
 
“If he helped you escape, then I must agree.
 
Of course we’ll leave the money for him to collect—with no further repercussions.”

Tina sighed against him.
 
“When I woke up in that place this afternoon and I started to figure out what had happened, my biggest fear was that I’d never see you again.”

“I’ll have to confess to a similar fear when Pepridge told me he had you.
 
I was ready to give him up if it meant there was a chance of you returning safely.”

“I love you, Clarendon.
 
And I don’t care if it
is
just infatuation you feel for me.
 
I’m determined to enjoy it while I can.”

“At this point, Tina my sweet, I’d be inclined to say that it was actually love all along.”

She sat back and gave him a skeptical look.
 
“Really?”

He grinned back.
 
“All right.
 
At first, it was lust.
 
And fascination.
 
But by the time I had reached the point where I was doubting myself and not wanting to make you promises I couldn’t keep, I was deep in, my love.
 
Head over heels, as they say.”

“Well, I’ll be safe in saying that it was definitely no more than infatuation on my part for the longest time.”

“Is that so?” he asked, his voice deep with laughter.

“It is indeed.
 
I was all of twelve, after all.”
 
She grinned at his startled expression.
 
“When you came out on one of your rare visits to the manor.
 
I had just joined the household.
 
I was wildly in infatuated with you.”

“
Were
you?”

“Yes.
 
Though of course I hardly knew you.
 
But for years after that, I prayed for your safety.
 
And I’d always slip into the chapel and give fervent thanks to God each time a letter from you arrived.”
 
She chuckled at his skeptical expression.
 
“Ask Edmund, if you doubt me.
 
He knew all about my
tendre
, even though at the time I assumed it was my very own darkest secret.”

He smiled sadly.
 
“I hardly deserved such constancy, Tina, though I’m touched by it.”

“Well, once I turned seventeen or so, I did learn some sense and set aside my feelings for you as a youthful folly,” she said lightly, trying to banish the heaviness in his expression.
 

“I’m glad to hear it.
 
So what happened to change your course?”

She shrugged.
 
“I met you again and found you even more devastating now than I did when I saw you at age twelve.
 
Then we began working together and I discovered that in complete contradiction of every rumor, you were intelligent, focused, responsible and eminently reasonable.
 
I really shouldn’t have made that assumption about mistresses at all, if I had examined your behavior on its own.
 
But your mother was kind enough to remind me of your wild past, and from then on I was searching for evidence to bolster my own insecurities.”
 
She stared at his chest, her mouth tightening.
 
“After all, you were no more than infatuated with me, and that could end at any time…”

He slipped his finger under her chin and raised her face to look up at him.
 
“You do believe me, don’t you Tina?
 
That I love you?”

She sighed.
 
“I’m trying very hard, since you seem to be awfully earnest about the whole thing. It’s just that I’m a plain, unladylike bluestocking who fights like the gutter brat she is.
 
It seems to me the only reason you married me was out of some infatuation with the notion of turning over a new leaf and, perhaps, to retain a moderately talented estate manager.”
 
She looked at him.
 
“But you say you love me.”

“I do, you know,” he said, watching her with those burning eyes of his.
 
“As far as I’m concerned that description of you is completely incomprehensible.
 
All I see is a woman too beautiful for my own peace of mind, who’s brilliant and funny.
 
Whose fierce independence I admire and respect.”
 
He shrugged.
 
“I don’t know who you’re talking about, but I’m describing who I see when I look at you.”

Tina’s mouth twisted into a rueful smile as she gazed up at him.
 
“If that’s really what you see, then you must be in love.
 
Or insane.
 
Though some have said the two states are indistinguishable.”

“In love?
 
Absolutely,” he said, cupping her face in his hands as he gave her a wonderful, tender smile that melted her insides even as it excited her.
 
“And I’d have to say I’m also quite firmly in sanity, these days.
 
After years of utter madness, I met you, and the world finally started to make sense again.”

“Oh, Edward,” she sighed as she leaned into him.
 
Their lips met in a plunging, tender kiss, made all the more wondrous by the knowledge that it emerged from the depth of a mutual love.

A fire ignited in her belly as she felt the brush of his fingers between her breasts, untucking the towel.
 
She leaned back against the pillows, her fingers working at the buttons of his shirt.
 
He ran his hands along her naked flesh and she gasped as the heat within her intensified, her muscles clenching.
 

Pushing the shirt off his shoulders, she reveled at the feel of his muscled torso under her hands.
 
He leaned in for another kiss before moving down, leaving a tingling trail of moisture, as the softness of his lips contrasted with the rasp of his stubble.

She writhed, her breath coming fast and her eyes closed as he pleasured her with his tongue and she let out a moan of release.
 
Then, her breathing still hard, she sat up.
 
He looked up, briefly startled, as she reached down and curled her fingers into his hair, then leaned forward and kissed him.
 

She could taste herself on his lips as she pressed him backward, her tongue teasing him one moment, demanding of him the next.
 
She tweaked his nipple with one hand, while the other slid slowly across his back, feeling every arc and contour of muscle.

Then, pulling back, she gave him a wicked grin.
 
“It’s my turn.
 
Now, lie back.”

The dark flare of excitement in his eyes gave her a rush of heady pleasure.
 

“Yes’m.”

He lay back and she straddled him, leaning in to give his nipple a lick, before making her leisurely way down his chest, interspersing the softness of her lips with the occasional rasp of her teeth.
 
Then, her own excitement mounting, she took his hard shaft in her mouth.
 
Falling into the glorious rhythm of the moment, she drank back the liquid salt of his explosive fulfillment, the sound of his groan triggering her own orgasm.

For a few moments, they lay together, sated.
 
Then, Clarendon shifted and grinned at her.
 
“We’ve taken our turns now, love.
 
What’s say we go together this time?”

Tina could think of no reason to object.

Clarendon was awakened the next day by a knock on the bedroom door.
 
He and Tina had stayed in her rooms for the rest of the previous day.
 
After making love again, they had slept, rousing in the early evening.
 
Clarendon had ordered up a big tray of food and they ate in a state of
déshabille
, bites interspersed with kisses and tender looks.
 
Then, they made love until dawn, before collapsing into an exhausted sleep in each other’s arms.

Now, he frowned at the disturbance, before climbing out of bed and hastily pulling on a shirt and pants.
 
He shoved his feet into his shoes.

“What is it?”
 
Tina blinked sleepily at him as she reached for the chemise she hadn’t ended up using after her bath.
 
She sat up and slipped it on.

He shook his head.
 
“I’ll see to it, whatever it is.
 
You can just go back to sleep, love.”
 
He strode back and gave her a quick kiss, even as the knock sounded again.

There was the sound of a throat clearing just outside the room.
 
“Your Grace?”

Clarendon had already reached the door and he yanked it open to level a glare at the footman.
 
“What the devil is it?” he demanded, his voice low.

“Lord Sebastian Tremain, Your Grace.
 
He’s waiting in the study and says it’s an emergency.”

Clarendon glanced back at Tina, glad to note that she had apparently subsided back into sleep.
 
Then, closing the door quietly behind him, he followed the footman downstairs.

“He’s escaped,” Lord Sebastian announced without preamble as Clarendon entered.
 
He was unshaven, his clothes badly rumpled, and he looked exhausted.

“How?”

Bastian’s mouth twisted.
 
“Damned if I know.
 
You see, the two men I left with him have also disappeared.”

Clarendon swore.

“I agree, old chap,” Bastian commented grimly.
 
“I’m just off to assemble what’s left of my men to see if we can run him to ground.
 
I wanted to stop by and let you know what’s happened, Clare.
 
Keep your eye out.
 
It’s possible he’ll try to come after you.”

“Understood.
 
You’d best be on your way, then.
 
I’ll give Tina the news.”

Clarendon was on his way up the stairs when he heard the commotion from the servants’ quarters—some sort of explosion, followed by screams and shouting.
 
“What the devil—?”
 

He ran to the servants’ stairwell and joined the jostling rush belowstairs.
 

“What’s happened?” he demanded of one of the footmen, distantly noting that Chalmers had already taken charge of the situation and was barking commands at his underlings, pulling a reluctant order out of the milling chaos.

“Some kind of explosion, Your Grace,” the footman replied.
 
The fear in his expression made him look very young.
 
“Don’t know wot, exactly—” He was cut off by another scream that sliced through the general hubbub.

Both men glanced in the direction it had come from, and it was then that Clarendon smelled smoke, mixed with a sickening whiff of gunpowder.
 

“Pepridge,” Clarendon muttered, the panic rising.

Tina felt her arm being lifted gently and she gave a sleepy smile.
 
“Clarendon what are you—” She shifted against the movement, even as she felt the grip turn to iron and the sudden pain of rope pressing against the unhealed chafe mark on her wrist.

“So sorry about this, my dear.”
 
Pepridge’s voice came from close to her cheek, even as her eyes flew wide to find him looming above.
 
“In a manner of speaking, at least.
 
Though in fact, I’m not really sorry at—”