The Madness Of Lord Ian Mackenzie (16 page)

“Ian Mackenzie.” Beth set her heels as Ian tried to lead her away. “What did he mean, you saved his life? You cannot simply close up without telling me the story.”

“I didn’t save his life.”

“Ian.”

She walked to an empty alcove where chairs had been placed for weary gamers. She plumped down on a chair and folded her arms. “I refuse to move until you tell me.” Ian sat down next to her, his golden eyes unreadable.

“Arden was in the asylum with me.”

“So I gathered. He doesn’t look insane.”

Disgust flickered across Ian’s face. “His father had him committed, wanted the doctors to cure him of his affliction any way possible.”

Beth glanced to where Arden was speaking to Graves by the hazard table. They had their heads together, Arden’s nose almost on Graves’s cheek. Graves clamped a gloved hand on Arden’s elbow, then softened his grip and moved his hand to Arden’s back.

“Mr. Arden prefers the company of gentlemen,” Beth concluded.

“Yes, he’s an unnatural.”

Beth studied the two men with interest. She’d known youths in the slums who sold themselves to men with certain perversions, but she’d never seen two men obviously in love with each other. At least, none who admitted it, she amended. Such things didn’t last long in the rough neighborhoods of the East End.

“So his father sent him to an asylum,” she said. “How awful.”

“Arden shouldn’t have been there. It was hard for him.”

“He is adamant that you saved his life.”

“He means I took a punishment for him.”

Beth dragged her attention from Arden and Graves.

“Punishment?”

“He was caught with a book of erotic drawings. Men with men. I remember how frightened he was. I claimed it was mine.”

Beth’s mouth popped open. “That was brave of you. Why would they believe that?”

“My brother Cam used to smuggle me erotic books. I told the attendants that this one had been in the last bundle Cam had brought me.”

“Quick thinking.” Beth’s eyes narrowed. “Wait a moment, you told me you didn’t know how to lie.”

Ian absently stroked his thumb across the back of her hand. “I have trouble saying things that aren’t the truth. I let them ask questions and I nodded at what I wanted them to believe.”

She couldn’t help smiling. “Sly devil.”

“They sent Arden off and had me take the treatment.”

Her smile died. “What sort of treatment?”

“An ice bath first. To dull the heat of the perversions, they said. Then electric shocks.” He swirled his fingertip over his temple. “So many of them.”

Beth had a sudden vision of the long-limbed young Ian sitting in ice water, his eyes closed, his lips blue as he shivered. And then stretched on a bed hooked to an infernal machine she’d once seen a picture of in a journal, coils and wires fastened to manacles.
The marvels of modern medicine,
the caption had read.
Patients treated by new and improved methods of electric current.

They’d have sent shocks through Ian’s body while he tried not to scream. Perhaps that explained why he always massaged his temples, was prone to headaches. Beth squeezed his hands between hers, tears filling her eyes. “Oh, Ian, I can’t bear to think of you like that.”

“It was a long time ago.”

She looked at Arden again, angry this time. “The coward. Why on earth did he let you do that for him?”

“Arden was frail. The treatment might have killed him. I was strong enough to bear it.”

She squeezed his hand harder. “It still wasn’t right that they should do that to you. It’s horrible.”

Ian caressed her fingertips. “I could bear it. I was used to it.”

She heard the echoes of Ian’s screams in her head. Beth pressed her forehead to his hands, her heart wrenching. Ian’s hands were large, sinews hard under his kid-leather gloves. Yes, he was strong. In the Tuileries Gardens, it had taken both Mac and Curry to pull him away from Fellows. That didn’t mean others could try to tear at that strength, try to defeat him. The doctors in the horrible asylum had done it, and now Fellows was trying to.

I’m falling in love with you,
she wanted to say into their clasped hands.
Do you mind awfully?

Ian was silent, but she sensed when his attention moved from her. His body tensed; his head turned. She looked up. Ian stared across the room at the door that had admitted them. He rose slowly, like an animal sensing danger. The door burst open, and shouts and screams filled the room. “Hell,” Ian said.

He jerked Beth to her feet and started dragging her toward the back of the room. Beth craned to see what was going on as Ian propelled her at a rapid pace to the rear of the casino. People ran every which way, and the female croupiers scrambled to grab money and stuff it into their corsets. “Wait.” Beth clutched his sleeve. “We can’t leave Isabella.”

“Mac’s here. He’ll see to her.”

Beth scanned the room and saw Mac’s large body breaking through the swarming people. Isabella’s red head stopped when Mac grabbed her arm.

“Why didn’t you tell her he was coming?”

“He made me promise not to.”

“Mac wanted to watch out for her, didn’t he?” Her hopes rose. “He came to protect her.”

“Yes. It’s dangerous.”

“So you said. It’s a police raid, isn’t it? Funny how they chose tonight of all nights.”

“Not funny. It was Fellows.”

“Yes, I wondered…”

Beth trailed off as Ian shoved aside a black curtain, yanked open a door that blended into the paneling, and pulled Beth up a narrow staircase that reeked of cigar smoke. The stair led to a dingy back hall and a rickety door that spilled into a tiny yard. The yard was inky black and filthy, and torrents of rain poured down on them.

“A shame our wraps are back there,” Beth said, shivering. “I don’t suppose the police would be polite enough to return them?”

Ian didn’t answer. He pulled her through an open gate and hurried with her down an alley, Ian’s arm firmly around Beth’s waist.

Lightning flared overhead, for an instant illuminating the wet, refuse-strewn alley and the faceless walls on either side. Beth saw movement at the mouth of the alley, and Ian swung her down another, even darker passage. “That was the way out.” Her teeth chattered.

“Fellows and the Surete will have blocked it.”

“I do hope you know where you’re going.”

“I do.”

Beth went silent again. It was just like Ian to commit the maze of alleys of Montmartre to memory. She wondered if he’d explored them or simply looked at a map. “Fellows is quite a thorn in our side, isn’t he?” Beth said over the pounding rain. “Blast the man. This was my best frock.”

The narrow alley ended at another street, but Beth couldn’t say where they were. The crooked lanes of Montmartre ran every which way. Ian held Beth close as they hurried along the street, drenched in rain. Thunder rolled overhead, the lightning too close. Ian knew they were on the opposite end of the town from Mac’s dingy studio. Fellows would look for them there, in any case. Beth was shivering, soaking wet. He had to get her out of the rain.

The word
Pension
caught Ian’s attention as they ran past a house. He grabbed the doorknob of a dusty glass door and pushed his way inside.

“Monsieur.” A man with lank black hair looked Ian and Beth up and down, took in their fine clothes, and straightened his shoulders. In a torrent of French, he offered them the best room in the pension, which he tried to tell them was superb. Ian piled a stack of gold coins in the man’s hand and demanded the room plus a hot bath for the lady. Thunder rocked the house as they hurried up the stairs. The pension had no gaslights, and a maid hurriedly lit candles throughout the small bedroom, pinpoints of yellow in the gloom. Beth stood by the tiny stove, rubbing her arms. She shivered too much, Ian thought. Ian curtly reminded the maid about the bath, and presently two men came in lugging a large tub. Ian stripped off his coat while the maid and a younger girl filled the tub with steaming water. When they’d all gone, Ian turned Beth around and began unbuttoning her sodden bodice. Beth wiped rain from her face while Ian pulled off the bodice and unhooked her skirts.

Undressing her was a pleasure, even when he worried about getting her warm. She tried to help him strip off her petticoats and bustle, then the corset and chemise, but her fingers shook too much.

Ian went down on one knee to untie her drawers and slide them down her legs. Her stockings came off in clumps, heaps of wet silk on the floor. Ian ran his hands up her cold legs, over her hips, and up her sides. As he stood he cupped his hands around her breasts, then bent his head and kissed her. Her tongue moved in his mouth, and he circled his thumbs over her nipples, teasing the points to stand. Rain splashed against the bare window, coating the glass with water. Lightning flashed outside, followed by a boom of thunder.

Ian lifted Beth, still kissing her, and lowered her into the steaming bath. Beth’s eyes closed in relief as the warm water engulfed her. Ian stripped off his waistcoat and collar, then his shirt, letting them fall in heaps of wet fabric.

Beth opened her eyes as he kicked off his boots and stepped out of his trousers. He rubbed his bare skin with a towel the maid had left, then stepped into the end of the tub, sliding his feet on either side of hers. Hot water covered his calves, the bite of its heat soothing. He hadn’t liked hot baths as a child—he’d screamed that the water burned him, even when it was only mildly warm. His father had never believed him and shouted at the footman to plunge Ian into the water and be damned. “There isn’t enough room for both of us.” Beth gave Ian a lazy smile, her blue eyes slits.

“I just need to get my feet warm.”

Ian toweled his wet hair, and Beth leaned back against the curved end of the copper tub to watch him. He’d have to send word to Curry to bring them fresh clothes, but not now. None of the poor sods in this house needed to be running out in the storm.

“This hotel is rather seedy,” Beth murmured. She made little figure eights with her hands in the water, watching the ripples spread. “Not the sort in which respectable ladies and gentlemen stay.”

“Does it matter?” One room was much like another as far as Ian was concerned.

“Not really. It’s another wickedness in a night of so much wickedness. I never knew I’d like wickedness so much, Ian. Thank you for showing it to me.”

Her gaze roved his body and came to rest solidly on his erection. That organ pointed stiffly at her, and how could it help it?

Beth was beautiful. Her limbs were white against the tub’s copper bottom, her nipples pinched tight with cold and desire. Strands of dark hair floated around her shoulders, and the twist of hair between her thighs was darker still.

Her face flushed with heat, her red lips curved into a smile, and her blue eyes gleamed. She lazily licked a droplet of water from her lower lip.

The storm raged through Montmartre like cannon fire. No one, not even Curry, knew where they were. Tonight, Beth belonged to him.

Ian’s life was dictated by other people—events and conversations swirled past him before he could follow them; other people decided whether he’d live in an asylum or out of it, whether he’d go to Rome or wait in London. Events flowed and ebbed, and as long as they didn’t interfere with his interests, like finding elusive Ming pottery, he let them happen.

Now Beth had landed in the swift stream of his life, and she’d stuck there like a rock. Everything else swirled past him, but like an anchor, Beth stayed. He needed her to stay forever.

Ian bent and hauled her to her feet. Her body was slippery, sliding in a fine way against his.

“You’re still cold,” she said.

“You’ll warm me.”

He snatched another towel from the pile and wrapped it around her before she could start shivering again. The heat of her body was better than a fire, better than all the hot water in the world.

Ian lifted her, stepped carefully from the bath, and carried her to the narrow bed near the stove. The maid had and inserted hot bricks wrapped in cloth under the worn but clean linens.

Ian laid Beth on the warmed bed. She looked up at him, not in the least worried as Ian dropped his towel and stretched out beside her. He pulled the covers over them both, cocooning them in warmth. The heat of the bricks and Beth’s body permeated the bed, driving away the cold.

Beth wrapped her arms around Ian as he turned onto his side to face her. “What naughtiness are you going to teach me now?” She smiled.

She still didn’t understand.

“No games tonight.”

“Oh.” She sounded disappointed.

Ian smoothed her wet hair back from her face and leaned so he was half on, half off her. Her breath touched his mouth, fragrant and sweet.

“Promise me,” he said.

“Promise you what?”

“Promise you’ll tell me to stop.”

She gave him an arch look. “That all depends on what you start.”

Beth still thought he was playing.
Don’t let me hurt you.

“Promise me.”

“Very well,” she said, still smiling.

Ian smoothed her eyes closed, brushed kisses down her nose and across her lips. Her mouth moved, her tongue darting out to catch his, but he moved out of reach. “I want you,” she whispered. A blush spread across her face. “But it’s been a very long time. Perhaps I won’t be able to.”

Ian reached between her legs and sank his fingers into hot moisture. “You will.”

“How do you know?”

She pretended to have so much experience, but sharing a bed with a sedate husband and intense coupling with a lover were two different things. One was duty, the other… wildness. Perhaps her husband had made duty enjoyable, but what Ian wanted was not a dutiful wife lying on her back for her husband.

He wanted to show Beth every nuance of pleasure, from the incredibly gentle to the crazed and rough. He wanted them falling to the bed afterward, bruised and spent, both of them sated. He wanted everything with her, and he didn’t want it tame.

“Let me,” Ian whispered against her mouth as he slid his fingers inside her. Beth gasped, and her hips rocked up. Ian stroked two fingers into her, then swirled them around her sleek tuft of hair. She was hot, wet, ready.