With This Ring (18 page)

Elektra couldn’t remember when she’d dug her fingers into his sleeve, or when she’d reached for him with her other hand.
All she knew was that his hair was hot silk sliding between her fingers as she pressed his mouth to her neck, to her shoulder, to her throat—

“No.”
She’d meant it to be a shout.
It came out a whisper.
A plea.
She swallowed and tried again.
“No.”
This time she managed a small step back.

He lifted his head.
His gray eyes focused on hers.
“I see the flames in your eyes,” he whispered.
“Attie warned me not to look into the flames.”

Elektra froze.
“Mr.
Hastings?
Did you drink the tea, Mr.
Hastings?”

He blinked.
She peered into his eyes and saw the size of his pupils.
Her breath left her in a sigh that was half laugh and half sob.
A man in the throes of Philpott’s tea would likely kiss his own horse!

Thank goodness she’d stopped him!

I wish I hadn’t stopped him.

The moment hung in the air.
She breathed slowly and carefully.

Then she swallowed hard.
“Off to bed with you, Mr.
Hastings.
Sleep well.”
She turned and walked toward the stairs.
A strange ache bloomed in her belly at the loss of his warmth and shelter.

Although the hallway was level, she felt as if she climbed a steep mountain, such was the pull he exerted upon her.

Just keep climbing.

Left alone in the dim hallway outside his room, Aaron blinked in an effort to focus his oddly distorted vision.
No
, she’d said.
Sleep well
, she’d said.

Yes.
She was right.
He was … not himself at the moment.
Even at his worst, he’d never been a man who would kiss a virgin in a darkened hall late at night.
No, that wouldn’t do at all.

She was a lady.
She’d been most proper to stop him.

Or maybe she just didn’t care for him at all.
And what kind of well-bred girl toyed with a servant?

He shook his head, confused.
Wait … was he angry because she didn’t kiss him or because she almost did?

I have lost my mind in this madhouse. I have become just another inmate.

*   *   *

Elektra made it to her own room and closed the door softly before she allowed the trembling take her over.

Off to bed with you, Mr. Hastings.

Her own bed mocked her, for she knew she would not sleep well tonight.

You have no right to turn to him. You have no freedom to break convention and choose a man like that.
To let him think anything else would be cruel beyond measure!

There were women who did.
Not simply the ones taking a commoner as a secret lover, which according to Philpott’s gossip happened every other Tuesday, but the other sort—the women who turned their backs on their worlds, who chose to be shunned by society, who gave it all up for the love of a man with rough workingman’s hands and muscles not rendered by fencing practice.

Mr.
Hastings would make a fine husband for any woman, she had no doubt.
He was strong and chivalrous, in his irregular way, and he fulfilled his smallest promises as if they were holy vows.

If she became one of those women, she need not fear the loss of her family’s regard.
The Worthingtons might be irresponsible to the point of madness, but they only wished her to be happy, not titled or wealthy.

And what of Attie? If you allowed yourself to be as mad and irresponsible as the rest of them, what sort of options would that leave Attie?

A family already notorious, thrust into true scandal by her eldest sister wedding a strange, albeit wealthy, hermit.
Her twin brothers recently involved in a scandal with a wicked widow—only Miranda wasn’t wicked.
Only a bit unwise, although that had come out all right in the end if one didn’t count the loss of Miranda’s large inheritance and the estrangement of Poll, who was everyone’s favorite of the twins—

No.
It all hinged upon her, Elektra.
The family teetered on the edge of financial and social ruin, yes, but it had not passed the point of no return, not yet.
She could bring them back, lift them up, return them to their past unity and happiness!

Or she could plunge them into an inescapable abyss of ruin.
Her ill-considered choice could tip that crucial balance.
Orion, Lysander, Poll—what decent woman would have them then?

Despite her doubts, her long journey and subsequent adventures, not to mention countless trips up and down the attic stairs, caught up with her in a tide of weariness that left the room spinning when she closed her eyes.

As she fell into the blackness of an exhausted slumber, she heard those words again.

I see the flames in your eyes.

His voice.
There had been something different about his voice …

*   *   *

Elektra spent the early hours of the morning restoring her bedchamber to order after her adventures in Shropshire.

Adventure. Shropshire.

One didn’t connect those two thoughts every day.

She didn’t smile.
Her mad mistake and subsequent acquaintance with Henry Hastings aside, that journey had cost her a prime opportunity to reach her original goal.

A goal only reinforced by last evening’s lapse of judgment.

His touch. His heat. His mouth on her skin.

She put it firmly from her mind.
No more of that nonsense.

When she had sorted out her dressing table, which she had left in a mess during packing—livid because some stranger cousin was on her way to parasitically attach herself to Elektra’s Season!—she found a thick envelope addressed particularly to her.

An invitation.
It must have arrived while she was gone.
Philpott wasn’t one to recall events of even a few hours past, so it was no wonder she hadn’t mentioned it.
Elektra slid her ivory opener beneath the wax seal, admittedly without any trace of excitement, to discover an announcement.

Lord Neville, Duke of Camberton, entreats your presence once more at his birthday revel, which has been regrettably delayed by inclement weather for those traveling from far parts to attend. The event has been rescheduled for Wednesday Night. His Grace begs your forgiveness for the inconvenience.

Today was Wednesday.
She had not missed it, after all.
There still remained time to fix matters.
For Attie’s sake.
For everyone’s sake, including that of Mr.
Hastings, who deserved better than to get himself into some impossible situation, fixing his attention upon her.

I am not free to suit myself.

If you were, are you quite sure a valet would suit you?

Yes. No.

Yes.
She shook her head sharply.
I don’t know—and there’s no point to wondering, because I have no choice.

Elektra lifted a book from her night table.
From between the pages, she slid free a sheet of foolscap and unfolded it.

Lord Aaron Arbogast, heir to the Earl of Arbodean.

Underlined three times.
The List.

She had missed her opportunity with Lord Aaron, of course.
That entire debacle was best not thought on too long.
Slowly her gaze moved to the next name, which had once been the first name.

Lord Neville, Duke of Camberton.

How could she have lost her focus so completely?

Of course, Bliss’s arrival had interrupted all of Elektra’s carefully laid plans to entrap … er, interest the duke.
However, now that she thought about it, Bliss might very well serve a higher purpose indeed.

Elektra put all thought of Mr.
Hastings from her mind and strode purposefully from her bedchamber.
Bliss had taken over the larger room that had once been Callie’s, two doors down on the left.

The door stood open and Elektra saw Bliss, who was of course an early riser, sorting hatboxes onto a teetering pile already atop the wardrobe, humming contentedly.

Without preamble, Elektra narrowed her eyes and pounced.

“I don’t suppose you brought something suitable for the Duke of Camberton’s ball?”

Bliss turned to her with a serene expression.
In her hands she held two perfectly perfect bonnets, each more cunning than the other.
“Why, cousin—”

Elektra closed her eyes.
“Sorry.
Silly question.”

Chapter Fifteen

Aaron rolled over in his sleep and there was room.
He stretched his legs out long, and there was room.
The simple luxury of sleeping with a straight spine made him want to laugh out loud in purest gratitude.

A real bed.
A true night’s sleep.
He stretched again, luxuriating in the length and breadth of an actual bed.

Oddly, he had no recollection of going to sleep.

He opened his eyes to gaze about the small chamber, still dusty and cluttered as it had been yesterday afternoon when he’d woken from his book-avalanche-induced nap to see Elektra and the cleared hallway …

Elektra in the hallway.

Oh, God.
He sat up straight in bed.
That had been a dream, hadn’t it?
It had a sort of smeary fog to it, like a dream …

Except he could still taste the silken skin of her neck.

He swung his feet to the floor and noted dully that he had lain down fully clothed, right down to his once fine but now much-battered boots.

The damned tea.

He didn’t know what was in that abominable brew, but a single sip had hit him like a brick to the skull.
He recalled the floating, unreal quality to his vision … and the incredible sensitivity of his other senses.

He could still smell jasmine.

So, it was real.
He had accosted the daughter of his host in a darkened hall.
The gentleman’s code of honor demanded that he confess at once and fling himself upon the mercy of Archimedes Worthington.
That wouldn’t be so bad.
Archie was a good sort, if a vague and dreamy patriarch.

It was Daedalus who would muck it all up.
Matters would definitely come to blows—if not swords or pistols!
Aaron rubbed his face, recalling Elektra’s ancient pistol, the family heirloom.
It threw a huge lead ball with great force but poor accuracy.

If he fired it, he might be able to intentionally miss Dade.
Or he might kill him.

Hell, by the look of the thing, he’d be lucky not to take out two or three witnesses!

Or you could just marry the girl.

Aaron swallowed hard.

Marry her?

Wed Elektra.

Wake up to tropical-sea eyes and sunlight hair every morning of his life, until time transmuted the gold to silver …

Yes. Oh, yes please!

It would cost him.
God, would it cost him.
A quick, scandalous match with the First Family of the Peculiar would erode the last thread of possibility of reclaiming his inheritance from the highly conservative earl.
Aaron tried to imagine introducing rumpled, Shakespeare-spouting Archie and dreamy, paint-spattered Iris to his haughty, patrician grandfather.
Your new relations, my lord.

Oh, hell.
Attie.
Would she curtsy with a scowl, spreading the skirts of her too-large dress, dipping her jumbled tassel of braids to the floor?
Would his grandfather freeze like a block of ice, as Aaron had seen him do from time to time—too highborn to overlook such oddity, too well mannered to show his disdain?

Protective anger surged through him, directed toward anyone who would pour scorn upon Attie’s tangled little head.
Or would it be much worse than that?

Grandpapa is still fragile. Any upset could set him back.

Well, this ought to do it.
Aaron fought the slightly hysterical need to laugh.

In his incompetent hands, Arbodean might very well crumble into ivy-twined rubble, as Worthington Manor had.
Perhaps, if he worked very hard for the rest of his life and had just a tiny bit of good fortune—no flood, flame, or pestilence, for example—it was possible that it would not happen.

At least, not in his lifetime.
Perhaps that was the best any man could hope for.

Once he’d risen and made himself as presentable as possible, thankful indeed for the washbasin Elektra had so thoughtfully provided, Aaron set out to throw himself upon the mercy of Mr.
Archimedes Worthington, patron saint of madwomen and hooligans.

Oddly, he found himself whistling.

*   *   *

Aaron opened his door and turned down the hall toward the stairs.

He stopped at the sight of a rolling ball of skirts coming down the hall in his direction.

It was a lumpy sort of ball, the kind with bony knees and pointy elbows and the odd red-amber braid trailing behind upon the elderly carpet.

Attie’s somersaulting path led her nearly to Aaron’s feet.
This left her sprawled on her back at his feet, gazing up at him.
He blinked down at her in silence.
He’d already come to understand that, as with a cat, it was best to let Attie begin each encounter on her own terms.

She considered him for a long moment.
Then she wrinkled her nose.
“You sleep quite late for a servant.”

Heaven save him from an observant child.

“Had a rough day, didn’t I?
You stepped on me, you know.”

Attie scowled fiercely at him.
It was quite an intimidating glower, or it would have been if not for the ridiculous angle.

“It’s rude of you to remind a lady of a mistake.”

Time for a subject change.
“Where is everyone?”

“You mean, where is Ellie?”

Aaron didn’t deny it.
Those otherworldly green eyes saw far too much as it was.
He didn’t care to try her perceptiveness further.

Attie rolled her eyes dramatically and flopped back on the carpet in abandoned boredom.
“She and Bliss are getting ready for a ball tonight.
Ellie is scouting out some duke she’s had her eye on, I suppose.
I
was not invited.”

A ball.
With a duke.

“A duke beats an earl.”

Attie smirked.
“My sister will be the most beautiful duchess in England.”
Then her odd little pointy face fell.
“Does that mean she’ll have to go live in some old stinky castle?
I wouldn’t go, if I were her.
Castles have bats.
And … and…”