A Man Above Reproach (13 page)

As soon as Sapphire came over to give Josephine a break, Elias took her hand and hurried her back to the courtyard before she could launch a protest. He slammed the gate behind them, laughing because they had practically been running. He kissed her, deep and swift, shedding their masks in turn. They made a faint clatter as they hit the ground.

“Lennox,” she said with a most fetching rasp, “we must keep our heads—wait. Did you clean up the courtyard?” She turned her head as much as she could, taking in the transition—the courtyard was no longer a dank and dark place. He followed her neck as it craned, kissing along every inch that she exposed to his reach.

“I had it begun, yes,” he said, lifting her hand to his mouth and peeling off her glove. “Truly, Josephine, I am too distracted to converse and you need to honor our agreement.”

“I feel different in this outfit now,” she said hoarsely as he yanked off her other glove. Her hands went inside his coat and she contained a snarl when she ran them up his chest. “It feels indecent.”

“Just touch me, Josie. Please, be quiet for a godforsaken moment.”

Blessedly, she complied and her bare hands touched his face as she brought it to hers. He was lost for a few minutes, his hands wandering to the sides of her waist, currently under too many layers of fabric and sequins for his taste. She leaned into him, his back against the newly dirt-free stone walls, no longer covered in rotting vines. He smiled into her kiss—restoring the courtyard had been one of his better ideas.

Every wandering thought was obliterated when she raised her leg against him. He dragged his hand down her stocking and groaned against her lips.

“Stop, Josephine,” he heard himself say. He applauded his real-world self, the self that was not kissing her, on his restraint. The one that was kissing her, the ethereal, wispy Lennox, was too surrounded by her essence to even speak.

“But I am still distracted,” she teased. “You are far too used to being the word of authority. You must remember this is an agreement with two sides.”

If he was not on the verge of losing control before, he was when he felt her tongue on his ear. His hands cupped her bottom of their own accord and crushed her to him.

“Vixen,” he rumbled, biting her bottom lip. He throbbed against her and he knew he had to disentangle before he completely lost command of his senses. As much as he wanted to, he could not ravish her here. He planted a last kiss on her nose and released her leg from its grip by delicately unhinging her ankle from his thigh, her well-formed, neatly comported ankle…

“Gads, woman,” he sighed, picking up the pins that had fallen from her hair. “Sit.”

He gestured to the table he had requested be put in the corner, where fresh flowers had replaced the corpses of the old ones and the wood of the chairs was no longer suspect to break if one put weight on it.

“Oh, Eli,” she said, caught off guard. Her hair was worse off than before, but the candles on the table lit her like she was something celestial. The wisps around her head formed a halo to complement the delight on her face. “This is… too, too much.”

“You are a wreck,” he chided, setting her down in the chair and standing behind it. “Let me see what we can do about this hair.”

It would be a shame to waste an opportunity to get so close to her graceful neck.

“When should we go back?” Josephine asked softly, as he ran a pin up her neck to capture a curl and twist it.

“Half of an hour?” He traced that superb collarbone, sweeping the stray strands to the back of her neck. “Whenever we want? Never?”

She sighed with contentment and it was like music to him. It pained him to think that kind of a sigh was few and far between for her. She nestled her head against his rumpled waistcoat, a shatteringly affectionate gesture, and he curled his arm around her. There was the night air, and their breathing, and nothing at all was wrong.

“You are cruel,” she said into the holy silence. “When you go away, it will be so much worse, even worse than it was before.”

“I remind you that we have scarcely known each other for a fortnight. You have no evidence to support me suddenly turning tail and running. What have I done that you will not give me the benefit of the doubt?” Elias turned her alluring face up to him. He felt he needed to make her look—perhaps it would be harder for her to ignore his words or misinterpret. He also selfishly wanted to see her eyes, but it broke his heart when he saw the sheen of tears obscuring the blue. “I have followed every possible prescription you might have for a gentleman, and
I know because I read your rules. I have tried to protect you without trying to keep you. The only real charge you had against me was the repugnant fallacy that I was married to my mother. I have not stepped over any bond of propriety without explicit or implicit permission. If you will never trust me, madam, I shall be sorely displeased.”

“Lennox, I knew men like you in the drawing rooms of Staffordshire, and I know enough to not get my hopes raised.”

She smiled and it was a bittersweet little thing, altogether different than the catalogue of smiles he had seen in her arsenal thus far.

Staffordshire
, he filed away, concurrently brushing a thumb down her cheek.
Men like me.

“I will endure your misgivings, then, for as long as you like. I will not be going anywhere unless you tell me to disappear and truly mean it.”

“I wish I could do that—and truly.” She paused to wriggle from his grasp. He did not make it easy for her, but strained a bit against her as she moved away. He did not want her thinking that she was easy to let go. “But for tonight… yes. I need time away from you. You clog my brain. We have put on a show for the crowd, to the ends of our charade, so our mission is a success. Perhaps I will see you tomorrow evening?”

“Absolute—oh, hell.” His fingers automatically went to his cravat, straightening it here and there, a nervous habit that occurred whenever he was reminded of an unpleasant social obligation. “I have to go to a ball.”

“Oh,” she said with a too-offhand tone. “Well, have a splendid time.”

“I must go. I do not have a choice.”

“I understand,” she demurred. “I do, really.”

“Josie…”

She shook her head, almost imperceptibly. “This will never work.”

“I have hired a carriage for you. It will arrive approximately ten minutes after I depart.”

“Thank you. You continue to do the unnecessary, Elias. I must play for a bit longer, but—you should go.”

Josephine stood. They looked at each other uneasily. Whatever she was thinking, he did not know, but he was deciding if he should kiss her good night.

“Good night, my lady,” he nodded.

“It was,” she replied. “Sleep well.”

He did not think that was in his near future.

The carriage ride felt much longer than usual. She suspected the driver was one of Elias’s footmen without livery. Damn that intrusive, exasperating man. There were so many things he deserved to know—had deserved to know before he involved himself so acutely in her life. It was quick and intense—she had thought he would disappear at every turn, ceasing to prevent a problem. Now it was too late, at least for her own chance of escaping with her heart unscathed.

She longed to hear him say her real name, her true name. The person at the still core of her wanted to know him. She wanted that passion directed to the woman she was. She acknowledged that.

She lit a fire against the chill when she got home, since Sally had not yet returned from the theatre with Nicholas. Josephine had hoped to find her safe at home, but instead she was still off gallivanting with a man who would surely break her heart. Not that Josephine had any right to lecture on heartbreak, not when the same thing was happening with the duke. She stared into the flames torpidly.

She felt consumed by him. She felt frightened. His words rang in her mind all the time, and she replayed their encounters in daydreams. She felt such a riot. She could not possibly digest the whole mess.

Sally, rosy with guilt, swept through the door.

“Don’t lecture, Josie,” she began, slinging her reticule onto the table merrily. “Tell me about your evening with the duke!”

“Were you seen with Thackeray? Stepping out with him was an enormous risk.”

“Humorless Josie,” Sally frowned, disappointed. “Are you not happy?”

“No,” she grumbled. “I am not. We should be ashamed of ourselves, careless idiots. And I am tired.”

“Let me ease your mind; we were not seen. But the theatre was amazing—you would not believe the spectacle. Nic wanted to be an actor, did you know that? His family frowns upon it as an ungentlemanly occupation, but I told him that he should follow his desires. He said that was good advice.” She smiled distantly, as if recalling an earlier point in her night. “He is such a singular man.”

“I told you when you began… you will regret getting carried away.”

“It is too late for that,” she said. “I love him. And he loves me, Josie. Would you deny us the bit of happiness that we can steal in this world?”

She had no answer. Certainly, she wanted happiness for Sally. She could not see how that could ever happen with a man who was heir to a marquess, a man who would have to cast her aside for a title and all the baggage that came with it. It was all but the same thing that her father had done to her mother. She had seen it happen over and over again. Sally, overwhelmed by the flush of first love, would hear no such thing. It was just as Josephine had feared.

“Josie,” Sally said, drawing a breath. “You have been very kind to me, but it is time for another girl to take my place here at the Paper Garden. You know there are many who would be grateful for the opportunity. I will be fine and you needn’t worry about me anymore.”

“Is he keeping you? Has he rented you a house?”

“That seems to be where we are heading.” Sally grinned sleepily. “You must admit, for a girl like me, I could have done worse for myself.”

Sally Hopewell had never known either of her parents. She had grown up in orphanages. In the almost five years Josephine had run the Paper Garden, there had been fifteen other girls similar to Sally, who had come to the Garden when it was clear they were in danger of abduction by Mother’s thugs. The girls came and went depending on their circumstances. It always started when Josephine noticed the suspicious nobles singling them out of attention. She would approach the girl, offer shelter without making a fuss, in exchange for help at the bookstore. Very few refused. Josephine tried to do this as discreetly as possible, not wanting Mother Superior or Digby to know where she lived or what she was trying to do. Out of the girls before Sally, ten had ended up kept, one married a tradesman, two had died, one ended up the most notorious prostitute of the decade, and one married a curate. It wasn’t a terrible record, all told.

Only Sally had continued working at the Sleeping Dove after Josephine’s offer of employment. She knew it was because of Nicholas, so his taking Sally as his mistress should have been no surprise. It had still taken Josephine off her guard a bit. She wasn’t sure she could get used to functioning without Sally’s cheerful presence.

“I wish you would be happy for me, dearest,” Sally said, clasping her hand. “I am in raptures and so very thankful for your help this past year. I could have been taken away—or worse—if you hadn’t opened your home to me.”

The same story, over and over. The girl would be happy for a few months, and then it would begin. She would be debased and cast aside. The man in question, since he was a peer, would marry respectably and sometimes give up his mistress for the time being, in deference to his new status. When he took up again, it would be with a different, younger woman.

“I wish you the best, dear, you know this. I just know it will end badly.”

“You can really be cold,” Sally snapped back. “It’s no wonder that cross, tiresome prude of a duke loves you.”

“I am not cold, I am sensible. And the duke is not—”

Sally waved a hand dismissively. “Whatever you say. The point is he loves you.”

“Pardon?” she said belatedly, since a loud tone seemed to be sounding in her head, an expanse of air between her ears that made a hollow, high-pitched whine. “You mean that he likes me? For some insensible reason, the man actually finds me amiable, that much is clear. I suppose.”

Sally shook her head. She was looking at Josephine, with… what? Was that pity?

“Nic says Lennox never likes anyone. Love or indifference.”

“You call him Nic? Oh, Sally, that is too familiar.”

“Do you not call the duke Elias?”

“No, well, he… he forces me to… he is relentless, incorrigible. I do it so that he will shut up.”

Sally raised an eyebrow and hugged her friend.

“We are both tired, Josie. I will tell you in the morning how Nic also said that the duke has never before dropped his studies to chase a skirt with such fervor.” She kissed Josephine on the top of her head. “Good night, dear.”

“Sally!” she called after her rapidly disappearing form, running up her spiral stairwell, laughter echoing all the way to the top.

C
HAPTER
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IX