Seated in a shellback chair at the back of Lady Justina’s salon, Vail remained with his focus on where Bridget conversed with the young duchess at the front of the room. He took in the gathering of lords and ladies assembled, and assessed their every movement. If a single one of them gave her the cut direct, he’d destroy them.
“This is merely a reading and not a battle,” Huntly drawled at his side.
He grunted noncommittally. For Bridget, who feared Society’s reprisal, it may as well have been. Lady Justina motioned to a gentleman in the crowd. The tall, dark-clad future Viscount Waters came forward. Vail narrowed his eyes as introductions were made between the two. Once one of Society’s most foppish dandies, Barrett had shed his satin-clad garments for dark ones, ceased using the oil in his hair, and now possessed a jaded hardness that marked him dangerous to a young lady. The gentleman said something that earned one of Bridget’s coveted blushes.
A primitive rage simmered inside, threatening to boil over.
Bridget looked behind Mr. Barrett’s shoulder and a little smile hovered on her lips; a secretive expression of mirth and warmth reserved solely for him. And some of the tension eased. Lady Justina spoke to her, calling her attention once more.
“There will, of course, be gossip.” His friend casually observed.
Vail stiffened. “If her being here is a problem, we’ll leave.”
Huntly looked stricken. “Come,” he scoffed. “Surely you do not take me as one who’d pass judgment on whose company you keep.”
Whose company he kept. Somehow in hearing that, there was a wrongness to it. Huntly’s word implied Vail’s relationship with Bridget was something disrespectable. “She is in my employ and has an appreciation for literature. Whatever Society believes in her being here—”
“Being here with you.”
“Then, they can go hang,” he said tightly, rolling suddenly tense shoulders.
Huntly went silent. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, gazes trained forward. It was his friend who broke the taut silence. “I merely intended to point out that the gossips will make something of your being together, regardless of the truth.” He paused. “But given your protectiveness of the lady, as your friend, I would mention it does appear there is more there.”
A flush heated Vail’s neck. “Don’t be…”
Bridget glanced over again in his direction and smiled. The sight of that easy grin, earned one from him in return.
“Well?” Huntly’s droll question shattered the exchange.
Reluctantly he shifted his attention over to his friend. “Well, what?”
“This is the new housekeeper then.”
He puzzled his brow. What in blazes did the other man know of Bridget?
“You didn’t have to mention her. Servants talk and there’s been gossip making its way around ballrooms.” He cast Vail a sideways glance. “Though, I’d hope, as your best friend, should there be something with a lady you might at the very least mention it.”
“There is nothing to mention,” he said defensively, damning the gossips. Hating that Bridget was being spoken of about town.
“Servants whisper and nobles talk,” Huntly casually noted. “She is not your lover, then?”
A muscle ticked irritatingly at the corner of his eye. The ton was gossiping about Bridget. He silently cursed loose-lipped servants. “She is not,” he said frostily. Though, I want her to be. This woman he’d shared so much with.
He stared contemplatively at the woman in question. “But she matters enough that you’d bring her here to Justina’s reading.”
Huntly’s was an observation more than anything. And a deuced accurate one. Then, this man and his sister had been the only friends he’d ever known in his life. Until Huntly, he’d believed other boys incapable of anything but cruelty and viciousness. The other man was correct…he had deserved more than veiled innuendos about…Bridget.
“She serves on my staff, hired by Edward as my housekeeper. But she has proven invaluable in her understanding and capability with valuable texts.”
“Ahh,” Huntly murmured, with a slight incline of his head.
Do not ask. Do not ask.
His friend, however, required no encouragement from Vail. “Is this the recent addition to your staff who called you away so quickly from your club at our last meeting.”
Damn Huntly for being the clever bastard he was.
“She is,” he bit out. The roomful of guests claimed their seats as Lady Justina took up position at the pedestal. When she began with her introduction of the reading, Vail spoke in hushed tones for his friend’s ears. “I haven’t made her my lover.” Yet. He’d already come dangerously close and wanted to take her to his bed with an aching hunger no warm, eager body could satiate—except her. “I trust you should know me enough to know I’ve more honor than that.” He followed Huntly to the two ends seats at the back row.
“If you care for her, then I wouldn’t begrudge you a relationship with the lady, regardless of her position on your staff.”
“I’d not be a lecher like my father,” he shot back.
Huntly snorted. “I assure you, Ravenscourt wouldn’t be worried after any lady’s reputation and he’d certainly not have brought her along to a salon.” When Vail made to protest, his friend spoke over him. “All I mean to say is if you care for the lady, you can expect support from Justina and from me.”
The duchess paused in her reading and glanced pointedly over the heads of the guests to her husband.
Huntly touched a hand to his heart. “My apologies,” he mouthed.
With a twinkle in her eyes, the lady resumed her reading.
Through the remainder of the afternoon, Huntly remained quiet, with no more pressing Vail for information about Bridget. Yet, through the quiet of Lady Justina’s reading and the discussion that ensued among the lords and ladies present, he stared contemplatively at the back of her head. Perched on the edge of her shellback chair, she hung on to every word read from that text. This kindred connection he had developed in their short time together went against the logical existence he’d formed for himself after Adrina’s betrayal. Some businessmen made rotted transactions and lost. In reflecting upon Adrina’s deceit, he’d gotten himself through the agony of heartbreak by likening their relationship to a failed venture. It had made him cautious of again letting any woman too close. And eventually, he’d found purpose in his business and his family.
What Huntly proposed, that there could be something more with Bridget, ran anathema to everything he trusted. So why did he want her, anyway?
Lord Langley stood and exited, clearing a place at the front of the hall.
“If you’ll excuse me?” Huntly murmured. Not waiting for permission, he hurriedly stood and found a place nearer his wife.
Vail studied them. That closeness was one he’d naively hoped for—a family. Mayhap that is why he’d not allowed himself to see Adrina’s avarice, because he’d been so fixed on attaining what he’d wanted. And mayhap—he looked to Bridget, now seated beside Huntly—mayhap, he might know that special bond, after all. He braced for the slithering of dread such vulnerability would bring—that did not come.
“May I claim this seat?” he stiffened. As though making a mockery of his hopeful thoughts, Lady Adrina hovered beside his chair in a cloud of fragrant jasmine.
She was as tenacious as a viper with its fangs out.
Lord Sandford turned back and frowned at them. Taking advantage of that distraction, Adrina swiftly slid into the chair. And all the earlier joy in being here was sucked clear of the room, leaving a vacuum of rotten memories and failed decisions in its place.
“Beautiful, is it not,” she murmured, as Lady Justina resumed reading from a passage of Petrosinella.
“You’ve discovered a love of literature, then?”
“I have,” she whispered. “You needn’t look surprised, Vail.” She glanced up at him through thick, golden lashes. “I’ve matured since you last knew me.” Adrina stroked her fingertips over the plunging décolletage of her diaphanous silver gown. It was a scandalous piece that would have raised eyebrows at any ball or soiree. It was one that would leave no doubt as to her intentions, before a polite crowd of lords and ladies gathered for a reading.
Bored by her display, he looked forward.
“Oh, come, you might pretend to be indifferent,” she said on a sultry, enticing whisper. She climbed her fingers up his thigh. “But there was once a time you could not keep your hands from me.”
He caught her wrist just as she brushed the placard of his breeches. “Remember yourself, madam,” he said crisply, finding Bridget.
She remained engrossed, hanging on to whatever words Lady Justina now read.
“What do you want?” he demanded in hushed tones.
“I want to begin again,” she said, all artifice gone. The earlier desire replaced with a ragged pain. “I am not the same woman I was, Vail. I regretted every day of my marriage. But now, we can be together. You’ve a need of me. You’re a baron and, with your business, you need a hostess.” With her pronouncement and her recent visit and desperate notes, it at last made sense. She had need of him.
“Your husband left you in financial straits,” he predicted.
She gave a small nod. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t love you and we cannot still benefit one another.”
“You propose a business arrangement.”
“Of a sort.” She placed her lips close to his ear. “But based on love and with the same pleasure we once knew in one another’s arms.” Pleasure that had never entailed her giving herself to him completely—neither in body nor name. It should have been the proof that he would never have been enough and that she never would have married him. Now, with his title and wealth she’d deemed him worthy.
He fought back a wave of disgust. “We cannot ever be together,” he said coolly, needing her to realize that what they’d had died long ago. “Nor do I have a wish to.”
Tears filled her eyes and she recoiled. “Is this because of her?” She jerked her chin at the front of the room. “The housekeeper all Society is speaking of.”
“This is about only us,” he said, cautiously steering her away from mention of Bridget. A wounded former lover had the power of great evil. Huntly’s wife had nearly been killed by one, as proof of it.
“Mark my words, Vail, she is as grasping as you took me for. I haven’t trusted her since I heard your names tied together in a ballroom and had to see for myself if you’d been as ensnared as the gossips claimed. And they are.” Pressing her breasts against his arm, she leaned up. “I was a climber,” she whispered ominously. “I recognize one.”
As if on cue, Bridget looked back. Her smile sank as she moved her gaze between him and Adrina, and then she swiftly jerked her attention forward. His heart thudded hard at the brief flash of hurt he’d spied there. “If you’ve come with warnings about Mrs. Hamlet, I’ll have you know she has more integrity and honor than any other woman I’ve ever known. I think it best if you leave.”
She tightened her mouth and then, with stiff movements, stood. “I see. If, however, you come to your senses, I am and will always be waiting for you. Good afternoon, my lord.” With that, she swept off.
A round of applause went up about the room, signaling the end of the reading and discussion. Vail jumped up as Bridget spoke to the duchess and duke. With a smile he recognized as forced, she started for him. As she walked, he noted details that until Huntly’s observation had previously escaped him: the sideways looks and stares that moved between him and Bridget. Suddenly, glad to be free of the room, when she approached, he held his arm out.
Not breaking stride, she marched past him, out into the hall.
Quickening his steps, he followed after her. “Bridget—”
“You cannot offer me your arm and you certainly cannot call me by my given name in public,” she whispered. There was a tension to her slender frame that bespoke her disquiet.
And hating that, in this instance, she was correct—for her reputation did matter—he dropped his arm to his side and, this time, as they made the journey from Huntly’s through Mayfair, and to his home, not another word was spoken.
Today had nearly been perfect.
If she’d been one of those fanciful sorts who’d allowed herself a dream, she’d have dreamed of a gentleman who’d not bring her flowers or recite prose, but rather one who’d brought her to a literary lecture.
And yet, Vail had escorted her to one of those very events, inside a duke’s home, no less. As though she was his Societal equal in every way, and had a place beside him and dukes and duchesses.
Given the family she’d been born to, it was preposterous to think she belonged near any of those people. But for a small moment in time, she could have almost believed she could fit within that world, and be part of it, discussing literature with lords and ladies and having others interested in hearing her opinion as the duchess had.
Except, she’d not been one who’d ever taken part in pretend. Life had provided her with too many reasons to see with only logical eyes. And any illusions she’d briefly allowed herself had been shattered, first when presented with the kindness of the Duchess of Huntly, and reinforced a second time by the sight of Vail with his former love.
And never had she been more miserable.
Seated at the foot of the leather button sofa, her legs drawn to her chest, and her cheek resting on her skirts, Bridget stared at the copy of Petrosinella they’d brought back that afternoon. It had been returned to its proper stand and now awaited its sale to Lord Cartwright.
It was fitting for that volume to be resting out, a reminder of Vail’s good-heartedness, a stark contrast to the evil she’d carry out against him.
“Do you never sleep, Mrs. Hamlet?”
She stiffened as Vail’s loudly spoken words drifted over to her ear. It did not escape her notice, and hadn’t, that since she’d revealed the truth about her partial deafness, he took care to speak more loudly when entering a room, and always positioned himself closer to her good ear. It only made her love him all the more. Uninvited, he settled himself beside her on the floor. “No,” she confessed. Nor were her peculiar sleep habits the product of a guilty conscience and her search for the treasured Chaucer book. “Since I was a girl, my mind would always wander about the books I’d read, and I couldn’t rest until I’d finished. And then after, my mind created stories of who those characters were.”
Vail stretched his legs out and looped them at the ankles. “And as a woman?”
A clever man who saw everything, he’d noted that detail.
“As a woman, I focus on my work and…” Virgil. She sucked in a ragged breath, the ache of missing him hurt like a physical pain. “Surviving,” she offered instead. How wrong it was that he should not know of the most important person in her life. With Virgil’s skill in examining those books at her side, Vail would have only ever been impressed by the boy. Pride stirred in her breast, along with a pang of regret for a meeting that would never be.
“That is how you’ve lived these years then? Focusing solely on survival,” he asked, answering his own question. It had been. Really for the whole of her life. “What of your family?” he asked quietly.
Just because one had blood family did not mean one had love and kindness and support. Vail and his siblings were just the fortunate ones who did. Bridget stared wistfully ahead. “When I was younger, I’d a lonely childhood. Books were like friends. I came across The Description of Cooke-ham.”
“Aemilia Lanyer,” he murmured, and a smile pulled at her lips. Of course, he should know that book.
“She painted a world where even one who did not have family could have a home in a country manor. Only I didn’t dream of a grand estate. I simply wanted a cottage surrounded by fields of flowers and there would be books and…” Her skin pricked with the feel of his gaze on her. She stopped her ramblings.
“This is the first you’ve ever spoken of your family.” His was a quiet observation that sent warning bells of panic blaring. “Tell me about them.”
She’d inadvertently brought herself down a dangerous path that could not be explored. Bridget cleared her throat. “Thank you for escorting me to meet your friends’ home this morning,” she said softly, reminding herself of the kind duke and duchess whose happiness her sister had sought to shatter.
Vail stood and she arched her neck back, studying his movements. She thought he’d leave. Instead, he wandered over to the rectangular table. “Did you enjoy Lady Justina’s salon?” He directed that question over his shoulder, presenting his lips so she might see them. At that considerate gesture, she lost the last remaining piece of her intact heart to him. But then, that was who Vail was.
“I did,” she said softly. “Very much.” More than she’d had a right to. She’d allowed herself to forget the ugliness that bound her family to the duchess’ and celebrated what it was to share a love of literature with another. Bridget pushed to her feet. “I…” Her words exploded on a gasp, as he picked the copy of Petrosinella in his bare hands and opened it. “What are you doing?” She did a search of the table and, finding a pair of white gloves at the far end, hurried to retrieve them and rushed back. “Lord Cartwright is coming to collect that title. You cannot—”
“Why this title?”
She stopped mid-sentence and blinked wildly. “I-I didn’t coordinate the transaction. As such, I’m certain I couldn’t say.”
He favored her with a heart-stopping grin. “I don’t give a jot for Cartwright. I meant you. What is it about this title,” he held it aloft and she shot her hands out to rescue the copy from his careless grip. “That meant so much to you?” He moved the book further from her reach.
Bridget sighed. “Vail, you’re going to—”
“I’ve told you everything,” he said somberly. Without looking at what he did, he set the book down. “I’ve told you about my mother, my father, Adrina—” Hearing that name breathed into existence by him made the woman who sent him letters and sought him out in Polite Society too real. It struck like a serrated blade in the chest. “I’ve told you of Erasmus and my siblings.” He searched a frantic gaze over her face. “And yet, you stop yourself from sharing details about your family and you cannot even tell me about your favorite book.”
At the desperate edge there from this proud man, her heart wrenched. For the whole of her life, no one had wanted to acknowledge her existence and she’d ached at the solitariness of it all. Only to find the one person who wanted to know those parts of who she was and she couldn’t share. Mayhap, this was to be the penance for her betrayal?
“My nursemaid read it to me when I was a girl,” she said on a threadbare whisper, recalling Nettie’s soothing voice as she’d cradled her on her lap, while her parents’ muffled shouts and cries rattled around outside the nursery door. “My parents didn’t have much use for me because,” she traced the curve of that crescent-shape upon her cheek and Vail followed those movements. “When I was four and they learned I was partially deaf, then they had no use for me.”
His face crumpled and, unable to confront the depth of that emotion, she returned her stare to the table. “The story is of a girl who never knew loving parents, who were wholly incapable of sacrificial love.” Whereas she would have cut out her very heart with a dull knife if it would have kept Virgil safe. She slid her gaze briefly over to the copy of Petrosinella, the tale of a heroine who’d had a hero at her side to battle the world.
“I confess, listening to Lady Justina read from it, the tale is bleak.”
Bridget gripped the edge of the table. “Only if you focus on the lack of love Petrosinella knew from her parents. But she found freedom. That is what the tale is truly of. So many in that book: her father, her mother, Petrosinella herself, are all enslaved but she finds a way out.” It was that hope for freedom that had allowed Bridget to sell her soul to Archibald. “When she has a glimpse of the outside world, she’ll sacrifice all.” Whereas Bridget would be forced to retreat to her tower once more. Such a thought had once been a balm bringing with it peace. Now, it left her hollow inside. I’ll never again see him. “One hour in port, the sailor freed from fears, forgets the tempests of a hundred years,” she whispered to herself.
Vail pressed something cool into her hands and she glanced down in confusion.
“It is yours.”
Her fingers curled reflexively around that leather volume. “I cannot,” she rasped, setting the copy of Petrosinella aside. “Everything is for sale. You said it,” she pleaded, needing him to be the ruthless businessman. Not this man who’d break with his values and compromise his reputation as a seller for her.
“Not this,” he said simply.
Vail cupped her about the nape and covered her mouth in a tender meeting. She instantly melted against his chest. Reaching her arms about his neck, she pressed herself closer, returning his kiss. He deepened that embrace. Filling his hands with the swell of her buttocks, he anchored her against him, angling her head.
“You are a siren,” he whispered, between kisses. “Taking you in my arms goes against my every moral fiber and paints me in my father’s image. And even knowing this is wrong, I want you, anyway.” Vail dragged his mouth over the column of her neck.
Moaning, she let her head fall back to better receive him. “This can only be right.”
He guided her to the mahogany table at her back. A little gasp escaped her as he hitched her atop the edge. Claiming her mouth again, he parted her lips and slid his tongue inside. She instantly met him in a bold dance wanting to remember forever the taste and feel of him. Wanting this moment to be enough to last her until she was an old woman, alone, with nothing but these memories of them together. His breath rasping loudly, he searched his hands over her frame. He freed her breasts from the confines of her modest gown and explored that generous flesh.
Bridget’s breath caught against his mouth as he palmed one of those mounds. “I-I always despaired of th-them being too large,” she confessed breathlessly.
“Never,” he groaned. He captured a peak between his thumb and forefinger and it pebbled under his ministrations. She let out a little mewling protest, when he drew back, but he only shifted his attentions lower to worship that bud.
“Vail,” she moaned as he closed his mouth around it, suckling and teasing the flesh to life with his tongue. He moved over and bestowed the same focus on the other neglected tip.
“I forget every pledge I’ve made when you are near,” he whispered. Bridget’s heartbeat quickened. “I forget respectability and honor and want to only know you.” He filled his palms with her breasts, bringing them together.
She arched into his touch. “Vail,” she entreated.
He lifted his gaze to hers and she found the depth of her passion reflected back in his eyes. “Tell me to stop.”
Growing up, Bridget had never thought to know the attentions of a gentleman…of any man. Marked as she was, she’d been reviled by her family and an oddity to the villagers. There’d certainly been no village boys eagerly stealing kisses.
As such, what occurred between men and women, the passion spoken about upon pages of ancient texts, recent ones, and gothic novels had been as much fiction as those books she’d read and worked with over the years. Vail Basingstoke, was the first person in the whole of her life who’d not fixated on the crescent marking on her face or the loss of hearing. In his arms, she was more than both those imperfections—she was beautiful.
His breath came hard and fast, matched in time to her own rhythm. An almost pained agony filled his jade-green eyes. With trembling fingers, she cupped his cheek and, leaning up, kissed him.
He stiffened and then, groaning, he devoured her mouth, tasting her as though he wished to brand her. Vail gathered the hem of her skirt and worked it up. She shifted, lifting her buttocks, as he pushed the blue skirts around her waist. The cool air slapped at her stocking-clad legs penetrating that thin fabric. A hiss exploded from her as he laid a possessive hand upon her calf. Leaning down, he drew that muscled limb to his lips. He placed a fleeting kiss along the inseam of her ankle and then higher, up to the lower portion of her leg. Her pulse quickened. Something in the flimsy divide presented by her stockings made his wicked exploration all the more forbidden.
“I-I hardly kn-knew a leg could feel like this,” she rasped out, as he continued his seductive exploration of that limb. In reply, he parted her thighs and dropped a kiss along the inside of her legs. The heat at her center gave way to a molten wetness. Not knowing what she wanted, only knowing she needed his touch there, she lifted into his caress.
“So beautiful,” he whispered, palming her through her undergarments.
She cried out, undulating slowly. Then, he worked her chemise down, until she lay bared from the waist down before him. There should be shame. He was her employer, a man she’d been sent to deceive and in the dead of night, on a table in his office, she opened herself to him, pleadingly, and yet there was none. A husky half-whimper, half-moan spilled past her parted lips as he found her with his fingers.
“Vail,” she rasped in supplication. He parted her folds and teased the slick nub at her center. Bridget shot her hips off the desk. Sweat beading her brow, she lifted into that back and forth stroke. With every teasing caress, a restless pressure built inside. Her breath came in raspy little pants as she worked herself against his long, expert fingers. Wanting something. Needing it. Knowing only that he could show her.
He withdrew his fingers and she whimpered at the gaping loss of him. “I’ve wanted to explore you like this since the moment I caught you behind my desk,” he breathed against her inner thigh. Her flesh quivered in response to the kiss that followed.
“I-I thought you wanted to sack me,” she said, her voice faint and weak to her own ears.
“Sack you?” He briefly glanced up and her heart tripped at the charming half-grin on his lips. “I’ve wanted to kiss you,” with each word, he trailed his lips higher, and higher, closer to the thatch of curls that concealed her wanton wetness. “I’ve wanted to touch you but never have I wanted to turn you out.”
“Th-that is good,” she said brokenly, her lashes fluttering. “Because I never want to leave.” The staggering enormity of what she said froze them both for an instant as through the magic that was his touch, reality doused her like cold Thames water being tossed upon her naked body. For she didn’t want to leave. She wanted to remain here with him.
Through thick hooded, dark lashes, Vail pierced her with a desire-laden stare. Wordlessly, he dropped a kiss atop her moist curls.
She cried out and, through the haze of befuddled hunger, reality melted away once more so only this remained. He slipped his tongue inside her slit, lapping at her. Bridget bit down hard on her lower lip and fell back, catching herself on her elbows. She lifted her hips in time to each hot, wicked stroke of his tongue. He slid his palms under her arching buttocks and dragged her closer to his mouth, his focused ministrations brought her higher and higher up a soaring precipice, until great keening moans spilled past her lips and her incoherent pleadings flooded her ears, in time to her beating heart. At the same time he suckled at her nub, he pushed a finger inside her channel.
She dimly registered him covering her with his muscled frame, and then reaching between them to free his shaft. He laid between her legs and thrust home.
Bright, blinding agony pulled a cry from her lips.
He stiffened; his breath came in desperate, ragged pants. “Bridget?” he asked, his voice hoarse with confusion and desire.
A tear squeezed out from beneath her lashes and she concentrated on breathing and the feel of him filling her.
All his muscles leapt with tension under her palms. “I don’t understand? I thought you were married…?” Confusion spilled from his hungry gaze.
“Please don’t stop,” she begged, clutching at his sculpted chest. She didn’t want to answer questions and what was more…she wanted to know all that came with this moment.
Sweat beaded his brow and then, clenching his eyes tight, he found her again with his fingers. That expert caress stirred the earlier longing and as he rekindled that desire, her hips of their own volition began to move.
His breath came harsh and hard, as he drew out and then pressed back inside, slowly. And as the initial pain dissipated, she felt other things: the slow, exquisite drag of him inside her tight channel, the pulsing at her core, as he pulled her higher and higher toward that ledge he’d brought her to earlier. Panting and moaning, her own incoherent pleas were muffled inside her head as she met him stroke for stroke.
He quickened his thrusts and Bridget wrapped her arms tight about him, holding on for all she was. Vail covered her mouth again, sliding his tongue in and out in rhythm to his hips. On a scream, she shattered in his arms. His body stiffened over hers and then Vail deepened his thrusts. He shouted his release to the rafters, filling her with his seed. Her channel pulsed around his throbbing length and he continued to pour himself inside.
And then with a harsh gasp, he collapsed atop her.