Vanquished (9 page)

So he was being dismissed. What cheek! Suppressing a groan, he reminded himself that his goal was to win her trust. "You do yourself a disservice, miss, if you believe my remark was anything but completely candid." With that, he started for the door.

Her voice called him back. "On the contrary, Mr. Rivers, it is you who do me the disservice."

That set him off his guard. He felt his smile slip and with it his some of his self-assurance. Turning about, he said, "Sorry?"

"You must think me a perfect simpleton indeed if you expect me to credit such rubbish, charmingly put though it may be."

Hadrian relaxed, feeling once more on firmer footing. The estimable Miss Rivers was flirting with him whether she recognized it or not. "Quite the contrary, miss, I am coming to understand that there is nothing of the simple about you."

Simpleton, I must be an utter simpleton.

Thrashing about her bed later that night, Callie allowed she had acted the perfect idiot. Only an idiot would agree not merely to sit for Hadrian St. Claire like some bloody trained monkey, but also to be cajoled into acting as his tutor. As if she gave a fig for what he thought, the thick-skulled man.
Rot and rubbish indeed!

As for the letter of introduction, whatever could Millicent have meant by directing her to fritter away precious hours posing for a portrait when there was so much of critical importance to accomplish in over the next few weeks? Were her mentor still in England, Callie wouldn't hesitate to plead her case. As it was, the breadth of a great wide ocean stood between them. She briefly considered telegraphing a message but the lecture tour of the United States was a hectic affair involving a great deal of travel by train--did she really want to trouble Millicent with a matter that was, well, trifling?

And it
was
trifling, or at least should have been. Photographs, people sat for them all the time nowadays. Why, you could scarcely walk into a public park on a Sunday and not encounter at least one photographer, passersby patiently queuing up for shilling photographs of their babies, wives, and sweethearts. Yet the thought of having her imperfect image captured by a camera's unforgiving lens dredged up all the old insecurities.

God, would it never be over?
She closed her eyes and rubbed a hand over her throbbing forehead. Ten years, and yet at times such as this, when it was night and she was alone, it might have been just the other day, the memory lodged in her consciousness like a deep-seated splinter.

It was springtime in the countryside, a lovely twilight evening. Lilac and early roses scented the air; the breeze was a silken caress against her face and bare shoulders, welcome balm after the stifling confines of the ballroom. She was nineteen and about to be married to Gerald, one of the season's most sought-after bachelors. Even her parents were thrilled-- this once she'd managed to please them. Yet something was wrong, or at least not quite as it should be, she could
feel
it. On pretense of her dance slippers pinching, she'd sought solace in the garden. Being careful of her gown, a pale pink affair with far too many ruffles and bows for someone her size, she perched on the edge of the stone bench and slipped off her shoes. Above her, the balcony doors opened. Cigar smoke drifted downward, choking out the scent of roses.

"So, old sod, how does it feel to be about to be leg-shackled to last season's leavings?" It was Gerald's best friend, Larry, his speech a telltale slur.

Cheeks flaming, she slunk back into the shadows and waited for Gerald to defend her.

Instead, he answered, "Oh, she's a milcher, to be sure, but with a splendid set of tits and a dowry beyond generous, I can bear marriage to a beast." He paused to take a puff. "The old gaffer must be desperate to be rid of her."

Chuckling, they stubbed out their smokes and went inside. Numb, she'd sat on the bench for what had seemed like hours. Eventually she got up, walked back in, and carried on with the evening as though nothing were amiss. It wasn't until the following morning that she called her parents aside and told them the engagement was off. When they declined to agree, she packed her bags and boarded the next train leaving for London and her Aunt Charlotte. She'd lived with Lottie ever since.

Every morning for the past ten years now, she'd scraped her thick waist-length black-brown hair into a tight bun, tucked her offending bosom into high-necked shirtwaists, and hid her curvy hips beneath layers of petticoats and skirts. She'd embraced spinsterhood and then the suffragist cause with the same enthusiasm, the same passion that other women applied to the roles of wife and mother. Instead of home and hearth, she'd chosen to fight as a soldier would fight, for a just and noble cause. Progress, albeit incremental, was being made. In a fortnight there would be the closed-door meeting with the prime minister, Lord Salisbury, who already had expressed some sympathy with their cause. Success was in sight, she could
feel
it. And if she hadn't found happiness exactly, at least she could claim contentment.

Or so she'd thought.

But at times such as tonight when all her restless energy spiraled toward a decidedly physical sort of pinnacle, content was the very last thing she felt. In the lonely stillness, she registered the rhythmic ticking of the bedside clock, which suddenly struck her as loud to the point of earsplitting. She thought about turning up the bedside lamp and reading for a while, or perhaps jotting a note or two in her journal but couldn't summon the self-discipline.

No, there was only one remedy, as shameful as it was inevitable. Closing her eyes, she slipped a hand beneath the covers and focused on conjuring "him," her fantasy lover. Though admittedly make-pretend and sketchy on details, he was real to her all the same. When she put her mind to it, she could all but feel the weight of him in the bed beside her, the warmth of his breath striking the side of her throat, the soft press of his lips as he trailed heated kisses over her body, a body which he miraculously found to be perfect in every way.

No matter how hard she'd set her mind to it, though, she could never fathom his face. The one time she'd tried to force it, the blankness assumed Gerald's features as she'd last seen him, bleary-eyed and sneering, which of course ruined everything.

The only part of him she'd ever been able to see clearly was his hands. Strong hands. Warm hands. Knowing hands, the palms broad but not too broad, the fingers long and sensitive, beautifully shaped. Even the fingertips had been meticulously attended to; the nails were clipped short, dustings of golden hair on the backs. And his knuckles, or rather the image of them stroking her cheek, her throat, the curve of her breast, was all it took to bring the throbbing between her thighs building to crescendo.

Only when she could bear it no longer, when the restless, budding ache was simply too urgent to ignore, did she give in and find herself with her fingers. But tonight was different, tonight was a first, for it wasn't her own too soft palm kneading her mons or her own too slender digits slipping inside her swollen to bursting sex, but the hands of a flesh-and-blood man.

Hadrian St. Claire's hands.

Stifling a cry, Callie fell back against the mattress and came.

"Hold on, Mum. I'm coming."

Head pounding from where he'd hit the wall, Harry crawled toward his mother, folded into the dusty corner like a schoolboy's broken paper missile. The floor between them was aglitter with glass, the only remains of his camera's shattered lens. Powdering the planks like new-fallen snow, it looked crystalline. Pure.

"Don't cry anymore, Mum. I'm here."

Reaching her, he stuck out a bleeding hand to comfort her, but she shoved him away, the angry red mark on her cheek matching the flash of her eyes. "Wicked ungrateful boy, only look what a muck you've made of things. Couldn't leave well enough alone, could you? Had to stick that bleedin' contraption of yours where it didn't belong."

"But Mum, he hurt you, he--"

"No buts." Dropping her voice to a whisper, she said, "One word from him, and I'll lose my place, and then we'll both be out on the streets." She slid her gaze toward the man standing in shadow, watching them from the far side of the room. Watching, always watching.

"You should mind your mother, boy." Footfalls came toward them, the shiny black shoes stopping within inches of Harry's bleeding fingers. "Get up." Before Harry could move, the man reached down and grabbed him by the back of his collar, jerking him to his feet.

"Please sir, no. Take me. I'll do anything you fancy. Anything." Mum stumbled to her feet, tugging on the man's coat sleeve.

Hard fingers bit into the back of Harry's neck. "But I don't fancy you, you slattern. It's him I want."

Like a scruffed kitten, Harry found himself dragged across the room to the bed, the big brass four-poster where his mum entertained her clients.

He tried digging in his heels but it was no use. Tossed atop the mattress, he twisted to look back at his mother. "Mum . . . Mummy . . . please."

She turned her battered face up to the man. "You won't hurt him bad, will you?"

Hurt him bad, hurt him bad, hurt him bad . . .

It was then that the last of the fight left him. Harry squeezed his eyes closed and waited.

Hadrian awoke amidst sweat-drenched sheets. Shaking, he reached for the gin bottle by his bed, pulled out the cork, and knocked back a healthy swallow. It was the dream again, the one that had haunted him for years only not for some time. Indeed, he'd been halfway to believing it was a thing of the past, a milestone he'd finally moved beyond. As always, it came as a rapid-fire flash of images with feelings attached like strings to balloons. No, not balloons--too benign an image, that. More like a black fog of terror and shame, a demon perched silently on his shoulder, awaiting the opportunity to strike.

The earlier encounter with Caledonia Rivers must have rattled him more than he'd cared to admit. Raking a hand through his damp hair, he tried telling himself that however good and noble she might be, he owed her nothing. Regrettable as is was that he must ruin her,
vanquish
her to placate Dandridge and save himself, that's how it went in a dog-eat-dog world. He couldn't afford to let guilt make him soft, not now when he had everything to lose and so very much to gain.

Forgive me, Caledonia. Nothing personal, but I can't go back. I won't go back.

No going back.

"O do not praise my beauty more,
In such world-wide degree,
And say I am one all eyes adore;
For these things harass me!"
--T
HOMAS
H
ARDY,
The Beauty

D
o try to relax, Miss Rivers. You're looking stiff as a board."
Head buried beneath the light-blocking cloth cover, Hadrian studied his "subject" through the camera's viewing portal. Owing to the high caliber of his apparatus, he rarely required posing devices such as a headrest or clamp. Had Caledonia Rivers managed to stay reasonably motionless, they should have managed quite nicely. In the course of the past two hours, however, he'd shot easily a half-dozen photographs, each one worse than its predecessor. Already the close atmosphere in his studio's staging area was choked with the acrid odor of magnesium powder--which hardly set the scene for seduction.

Seated in his posing chair against a backdrop of painted-canvas woodland, she lifted her chin in an age-old gesture of defiance. "I am doing my best to cooperate, sir. You did caution me to hold still just as I cautioned you that I am not accustomed to sitting idle."