Ten

“You followed that woman back to her house?” Baxter was stunned. “Confronted her in her own hall? I don’t believe this. What a crazed, idiotic, featherbrained thing to do.”

“On the contrary. It was the logical thing to do under the circumstances,” Charlotte said soothingly. “I had to discover what Miss Post was about. Surely you can understand that.”

“Bloody hell.” Beneath his anger, Baxter sensed the raw, wrenching fear. He made a futile attempt to contain the volatile mix of emotions. He knew he was not reacting in an entirely rational manner, but he could not stop himself. “How did you dare to take such a risk? Have you gone mad?”

Charlotte looked honestly baffled by his outrage. “There was no risk. I merely spoke to her.”

“You should have talked to me before you undertook such a dangerous scheme.” He swept out a hand. “I’m supposed to be your partner. And your bodyguard, devil take it.” And your lover, something inside him wanted to add in a loud, clear voice. I’m supposed to be your lover, dammit.

“But there was no time to send a message around to you, sir. I had to act swiftly or I would have lost sight of Miss Post’s carriage.”

“Unbelievable. You went after her in a flower cart driven by some stranger who could well have proven to be the most dangerous sort of villain.”

“I’m quite certain that he was only a boy from the country. I suspect that very few villains drive through London in flower carts.”

“You went straight into the house of the woman who had just attempted to feed you a fantastic lie. Have you no common sense at all?” Baxter scowled as he passed the balance stationed on the end of one of the workbenches. Good God, he was moving about the laboratory. He was pacing. He never paced.

The knowledge only served to darken his seething mood. Unfortunately, he had no choice but to continue prowling up and down the aisles between workbenches. He knew that if he paused even briefly he might succumb to the urge to seize the nearest glass retort and hurl it against the wall.

Charlotte had no business taking such risks. She would surely drive him mad before this was over. Her independent, unpredictable nature was a serious threat to his hard-won serenity. He was a chemist, not a poet. He could not deal with such surges of strong emotion.

Last night he had convinced himself that he had found a way to handle the tide of restless desire that Charlotte elicited in him. He had established to his own satisfaction that he was in command of himself and of the situation. He had concluded that it was safe to have an affair.

He had reasoned that the liaison would allow the unstable fires of passion to burn themselves out in a natural, controlled manner. The principle was not unlike his practice of using a carefully monitored flame to heat the contents of a flask full of volatile chemicals. So long as one was cautious and careful, no dangerous explosion would result.

In the end the contents of the flask would turn to ashes.

He had endured too much during the past twenty-four hours, he thought. He had assumed from her response to him that Charlotte would be amenable to his suggestion of an affair. But rather than give him a straightforward answer to his simple question, she had told him that she would consider the matter.

Consider the matter. Of all the bloody nerve. She had left him to twist in the wind while she dithered.

Then had come that nasty business with the housebreaker.

Now he was faced with this morning’s crazed escapade.

And he was seething. He never seethed. Seething, like pacing, was a sign of a lack of self-mastery. It was a signal that emotion, rather than reason, ruled one’s brain.

It was too much for a serious-minded, methodical, logical sort. If he had not been a modern man of science he would no doubt have been tempted to believe that some malign supernatural force had entered his life with the intention of wreaking havoc.

The knowledge that Charlotte had this sort of power over him stirred the hair on the nape of his neck and sent a chill down his spine.

“I resent the implication that I have no common sense, Mr. St. Ives.” Charlotte’s voice was drained of much of her earlier enthusiasm. The placating note was gone, too. She was starting to sound annoyed. “I am a mature adult, after all. I have operated my own business quite successfully for several years. I am no fool.”

“I did not say that you were a fool.” Damn. One wrong turn after another, Baxter thought glumly. In another moment the entire experiment would be ruined before it had even been properly begun and he would have no one to blame but himself.

“I’m delighted to hear that,” Charlotte said crisply. “I would like to point out that this morning’s events occurred because Miss Post heard the rumor that we were engaged to be married.”

He paused near the large burning lens stand. “What has that to do with this?”

She gave him a very direct look. “It was your idea to announce this fraudulent engagement of ours and it was the engagement that brought Miss Post to my door with her wild tale. Therefore, I do not see how you can blame me for what transpired. To be perfectly blunt, it was all your fault.”

Baxter began to feel hunted. He seized on the one thing that for some irrational reason irritated him the most. “Our engagement is not fraudulent.”

“Indeed. What would you term it?”

He searched for words. “It is a stratagem.”

“I fail to distinguish much difference between a stratagem and a fraud.”

“Well, I can bloody well tell the difference,” he said. “Or have you forgotten already that our engagement is designed to allow us to move in Society for the purposes of discovering a killer?”

She turned the straw bonnet absently in her hands, her expression suddenly thoughtful. “And a very clever ruse it has proven to be. Only consider. We have got our first real clue thanks to your little stratagem, as you call it.”

“What clue?”

“Don’t you see?” Her eyes sparkled with renewed excitement. “When I confronted her, Miss Post as much as admitted that someone had employed her to visit me in the guise of your pregnant paramour. She would not tell me who had done so, but it was evident that her task was to destroy my faith in you.”

“Obviously.” Baxter got a sinking sensation in his stomach. Any number of gently bred women would have believed Miss Post’s outlandish story.

“Someone went to great pains to end our so-called engagement,” Charlotte continued. “We must ask ourselves why anyone would go to such lengths.”

Baxter shoved his fingers through his hair. “Bloody hell.”

“It would appear that someone does not want the two of us to form a close association.”

“Calm yourself, Charlotte. I doubt very much that this episode with Miss Post has anything to do with our attempt to discover a murderer.”

“What do you mean?”

He exhaled slowly. “I suspect that you were merely the victim of someone’s notion of a malicious practical joke.”

Charlotte stared at him. “But who would play such a hoax?”

“The first person who comes to mind is my bloody-minded half brother.”

“Hamilton? That’s ridiculous.”

“A few days ago, I would have agreed with you. There is no great affection between Hamilton and myself, but I had not realized until this morning that he might be …” Baxter hesitated, still dubious of his own observations and conclusions. “Envious of me.”

“Envious?”

Baxter recalled the bitter expression he had seen in Hamilton’s eyes when he had described his willful destruction of his copy of Conversations on Chemistry. “I know it makes no sense, but I got the impression today that he harbors a personal grudge against me.”

“Why is that?”

“I’m not entirely certain,” Baxter admitted. “His mother would have influenced his view of me, of course. Maryann has always detested the very sight of me for obvious reasons. But I believe there may be more to Hamilton’s dislike. Something beyond the perceived insult to his mother, I mean.”

“What reasons?”

“His ill will toward me may have to do with the fact that my father and I spent a good deal of time together working on chemical experiments.” Baxter grimaced. “Apparently Father went so far as to inform Hamilton of my small venture on behalf of England during the war. And he once forced Hamilton to read a book I wrote. Hamilton seemed to resent all that.”

“I see.” Understanding lit Charlotte’s eyes. “A younger brother might be jealous of an older brother who had garnered much of their father’s admiration and attention.”

Another kind of emotion, the old, familiar, cold sensation, rippled through Baxter. It had an oddly calming effect. He knew this feeling well. Unlike the restless anger, this was something he understood and could control. “Hamilton got the title and the estates. What more can he want? It’s not my fault that he didn’t share Father’s interest in science.”

“No, it’s not your fault, but to a very young man it could be a reason for envy.” Charlotte frowned. “However, I cannot see Lord Esherton stooping to such a vicious piece of mischief as hiring a woman to ruin your engagement.”

“You barely know Hamilton.”

“True, but I have sound intuition. Also, Ariel seems quite taken with him and even though she is young, her perceptions about men are generally quite solid, too.”

“Intuition.” Baxter did not trouble to hide the sarcasm in his voice. “Allow me to tell you, Miss Arkendale, intuition is an extremely poor guide. It is based on emotion, not science. It is not to be trusted.”

“Sometimes one has nothing else to go on,” she said gently.

“Enough. I shall deal with the problem of Hamilton later.”

“You cannot be certain that Hamilton was behind Miss Post’s visit.”

“It is the most logical assumption,” Baxter said. “The point here is that you had no business confronting that strange woman this morning. You had no notion of what you were walking into when you entered her house.”

“Really, Mr. St. Ives.”

“Yes, really.” He turned and started toward her down an aisle. “There will be no more such rash actions on your part while we are engaged in this affair, is that clear?”

“I must remind you that I do not take orders from you or anyone else.”

He stopped a few paces away from her. “That leaves us with a small problem, does it not?”

She put her bonnet down on the workbench with a very deliberate movement. “There will be no great difficulty so long as you play your assigned role in this business.”

“You mean so long as I remember my place, do you not?”

“I would not put it in quite those terms.”

“You had bloody well better not put it in such terms. I’m not your servant, Miss Arkendale.”

“I did not say that you were. However, I did hire you in the beginning, if you will recall. If it will clarify the situation, I am still prepared to pay you a fee for your services.”

“You dare to talk to me of a salary? After what occurred between us last night?”

She flushed and glanced uneasily toward the closed door. “There is no need to speak quite so loudly, sir. I can hear you very well.”

“I never raise my voice. Speaking in a loud voice is an indication that one cannot control one’s temper.”

She searched his face. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

“Dammit, Charlotte, I will not be treated as though I were your employee.” He took two swift strides forward, trapping her against a workbench. “Last night I asked you a question. You have kept me dangling long enough. I deserve the courtesy of a reply.”

She frowned. “But we are discussing Miss Post.”

“Devil take Miss Post. I told you, I will deal with her later. Just give me my answer. Will you have an affair with me?”

She stared at him, her unblinking gaze as brilliant as the fabled glow of the Philosopher’s Stone. A dreadful silence descended on the laboratory. Baxter could almost see his own words hanging in the air, glittering with a dangerous light.

His timing could not have been worse, he thought with bleak despair. It did not take the exquisite sensibilities of a romantic poet to comprehend that one did not ask a woman to become one’s lover when one was in the middle of a blazing row with her.

Charlotte shattered the crystalline silence by delicately clearing her throat. “We are discussing our business association here, Mr. St. Ives. What do personal matters have to do with this situation?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

If he had any sense at all he would step back from the blazing crucible before the explosion occurred. But he could not turn aside. The only thing that mattered now was obtaining a conclusive result to this reckless experiment.

“Nothing?” she repeated very softly.

“No, that is a damned lie. Our personal situation has everything to do with this. I need an answer, Charlotte. I shall likely go mad if you do not give me one.”

Her eyes were suddenly swimming with mystery, full of unfathomable promise. But her voice was remarkably cool. “I vow, St. Ives, you are the most annoying man it has ever been my misfortune to employ. I can see nothing but complications ahead, but, yes, I shall have an affair with you. Now, then, can we please get back to business?”

For a single, unbearable instant, Baxter could not react. She had agreed to the affair.

He was aware that by some incredible good fortune the dangerously overheated crucible had not yet exploded in his hands, but he was as shaken as if his experiment had blown down the very walls.

Charlotte reached up to touch his cheek. “Baxter? Are you ill?”

“Very likely.” He caught her face between his palms. “If I am, one thing is certain. You are the only one who can supply the elixir I require to cure the fever.”

“Oh, Baxter.” She stood on tiptoe and wrapped her arms very tightly around his neck. “You are the most amazing, most maddening man.”

She kissed him with such fierceness that her teeth scraped against his own. Baxter staggered back a step. He caught her, steadied her, and returned the kiss with a sense of euphoric desperation.

Her undisguised desire was his final undoing. She wanted him. It was all that mattered in this moment.

He consigned his self-control to oblivion without a qualm and savored the great, ravening hunger that roared through his veins.

The world was suddenly fashioned of quicksilver. Bright, gleaming, ever-changing, endlessly fascinating. Nothing stayed in focus. It was impossible to concentrate on logic. His unquenchable need was all.

He crushed her lips beneath his own, seeking the damp heat of her mouth. He leaned into her, bending her back until she came up hard against the workbench.

“Oomph.” Charlotte sounded startled but she did not pull away. Instead, her fingers clenched fiercely in his hair.

Shuddering with hunger, he kissed her cheek, her eyes, her ears, her throat.

He raised his head just long enough to yank off his spectacles. He tossed them carelessly aside. Then he shoved one booted foot between her stocking-clad legs and slid his knee upward. She cried out and clung to him when she found herself astride his upper thigh.

“I can feel your heat straight through my breeches,” he muttered, awed. “You’re already dampening the fabric.”

She groaned and buried her face against his shirt. “You embarrass me, sir.”

“On my oath, that was not my intent.” He ripped several pins from her hair. “If you like, I shall study some of that bloody romantic poetry. Perhaps I can learn a more refined language to use at moments such as this.”

“Do not trouble yourself.” She started to jerk open the fastenings of his shirt with trembling hands. “You are doing very well without a course of study.”

Her fingers splayed across his bare chest. Baxter squeezed his eyes shut and sucked in his breath. His shaft threatened to burst through the front of his breeches.

Charlotte put her lips to one of his nipples. She said something against his skin. The words were unintelligible but the meaning was unmistakable. He realized with a sense of unfurling triumph and boundless gratitude that she was as desperate for him as he was for her.

A part of him wanted to take ample time to relish this first joining. But he was powerless to halt the headlong rush so long as Charlotte was rushing in the same direction. The combined force of their desire was truly irresistible.

There would be opportunity enough later to make the lovemaking last for hours, he promised himself. This time it was too elemental, too primitive a thing.

He grasped a fistful of her fine muslin skirts and hauled them up to her waist. He lowered his knee slowly and slid his hands beneath her bare, rounded buttocks. He eased her up onto the edge of the workbench.

A ceramic flask got knocked on its side as he struggled with the foaming skirts. The jar rolled to the edge of the bench and crashed to the floor. He ignored it.

“Baxter?” Charlotte sounded disoriented, confused.

“Just hold on, my sweet.” He grasped her legs and pulled them around his waist. “That’s all you have to do. I’ll take care of the rest.”

He quickly opened the front of his breeches and guided himself to her.

“Dear God, Baxter.” She gripped his shoulders.

The feel of her fingertips on the old scars sent shock waves through him again, just as it had last night. But this time he did not fight the sensation. It rolled through him with the force of lightning and he gloried in it.

“Tell me that you want me,” he said into the curve of her throat. “Let me hear you say it.”

“I want you.” Feminine need throbbed in her voice.

He put one hand on her sex. She pulsed gently against him, her flesh swollen with desire. He could feel the small bud straining against the pad of his thumb. He rubbed it gently and reveled in the way her entire body quivered in response.

“Make love to me, Baxter. Please.”

He almost laughed. The sound emerged from his throat as a short, husky croak. “I could not stop now, not even for the secret of the Philosopher’s Stone itself.”

He braced her against the sturdy workbench and guided his shaft to the entrance of her moist passage. He felt her go very still.

He thrust heavily into her, willing himself to go as slowly as possible because he knew from last night’s explorations that she was snug and tight. It had no doubt been some time since her last lover, he thought, perhaps even longer than it had been since his own last affair.

But his willpower had been weakened along with his brain, he discovered. The moment he felt the clinging grasp of her narrow channel, he forgot all about restraint. In the grip of a triumphant recklessness, he cradled her buttocks and plunged forward.

Charlotte yelped. Her body went rigid. Her nails dug into the acid marks on his shoulders.

He suddenly realized the truth. Charlotte had had no previous lovers.

“Bloody hell.”

In spite of her knowledge of men, in spite of the veneer of worldly sophistication she exhibited, in spite of her age, she was a virgin.

Correction, he thought. She had been a virgin.

He stopped moving but he was already sunk deep inside her. He could feel the small muscles of her soft passage straining to encompass him.

“Why did you not tell me?” he demanded.

“You never asked.” She kissed his throat. And then she smiled. “And it does not matter. I wanted this.”

“God help me, so do I.”

He adjusted himself carefully and began to move. He retreated slowly, aware of a sensation that was both pain and pleasure. It seemed to take forever to withdraw to the very entrance. She clung tightly to him the whole way. He finally halted when only the tip of his shaft remained inside her.

She drew in a deep, shuddering breath.

He reached between them, found the taut nubbin hidden in the soft curls of her sex, and stroked it until he felt her begin to relax.

“Yes.” She kissed him frantically. Her legs tightened around his waist. “Yes. Yes.”

She lowered her hand and gently, tentatively, cradled him. The blood roared in his veins.

Stroking gently, he pushed himself deliberately into her until he was once more sunk to the hilt.

She sighed and wriggled her hips.

“For God’s sake, don’t move,” he muttered.

She did not appear to hear him. Perhaps she was not listening. She twisted herself with mounting eagerness. Baxter closed his eyes. His hands shook when he tried to hold her still. But he was too close to the fire now. The lure of the crucible drew him with inescapable power.

Charlotte kissed him again. He was lost.

“Next time,” he heard himself promise in a hoarse whisper. He began to move more quickly within her. “Next time …”

But he did not have to make her wait until the next occasion for her release. He heard her cry out, a wonderfully triumphant scream of delight and satisfaction.

And then she turned to molten gold in his hands.

She convulsed around him, tiny spasms kneading his engorged flesh. He slammed into her one last time and spilled himself into her warm, welcoming body.

The workbench trembled and shook.

Baxter was dimly aware of the sound of breaking glass. Another flask had been knocked to the floor. Something heavy, the cast iron pneumatic trough, perhaps, toppled and fell. A metallic clang echoed through the room as two brass instruments rolled into each other.

Baxter ignored the chaos around him and lost himself in the whirlpool.

• • •

Charlotte floated gently down out of a world that was composed of pure sensation and found herself sitting on the edge of one of Baxter’s workbenches. She opened her eyes.

Baxter was no longer embedded within her body but he still stood between her legs. He was watching her with a shuttered, fiercely intent expression.

“You should have told me that you had never had a lover.”

The eerily emotionless quality of his voice washed away the last traces of warmth.

“It was my business,” she said. “I do not see that the facts of the situation need concern you in any way. You need assume no responsibility as a result of having been my first paramour. I am not a girl, I am a mature woman.”

“Granted.” His expression hardened. “But I do not appreciate being surprised by that kind of information.”

For some ridiculous reason, she was suddenly on the verge of tears. She blinked the moisture away with an act of sheer will. She refused to cry simply because Baxter had reverted to his customary brusque nature.

This was not how things should be after such an exhilarating experience, she thought. There should be great tenderness between them now. At least for a few moments they should both be able to indulge themselves in the wonderful sense of intimacy that had enveloped them during the passionate encounter.

Perhaps her emotions were still in an unusually volatile state due to recent events. But, damnation, here she was falling in love with this exceedingly difficult man and he stood there between her thighs, scowling as if she had done something unforgivable. Had their passion meant nothing to him?

“Baxter, you are making far too much of this.”

His jaw tightened. “Perhaps I am. After all, you were as eager as I for what occurred.”

“Indeed,” she said stiffly.

His mouth twisted. He glanced down, apparently amazed to discover that his fingers were still curved around her upper thighs.

A wave of acute embarrassment swept over Charlotte. She was keenly aware of a disturbing scent that she knew must have resulted from the lovemaking. And there was a great deal of dampness between her legs. She shifted gingerly and fumbled with her skirts.

“Wait,” Baxter muttered. “I’ve got a clean handkerchief here somewhere.”

He fished around in his clothing until he produced a large square of neatly pressed linen. Charlotte flinched and blushed furiously when he used it to wipe away the traces of their passion. She submitted for a few seconds and then pushed his hand away.

“If you’re quite finished.” She managed to get her legs closed. She jerked her skirts downward and slid off the workbench.

Her knees threatened to give way. She put out a hand to catch her balance.

“Why?” Baxter asked.

She glanced at him. “I beg your pardon?”

He crushed the wet handkerchief in his fingers. His alchemist’s eyes blazed. “Why did you choose me to be your first lover?”

Damn him. Two could play at this game. She dredged up what she hoped was a cool smile. “You, of all people, sir, should understand that sometimes the urge to conduct an experiment proves quite overwhelming.”