Bound by Your Touch (19 page)

Chapter Nine

Lydia sat frozen for a moment: not from the shock, precisely, but more because the sudden throb within her seemed dangerous to her balance. Only two layers separated his hand from her breast. The sun spilled a mild warmth over the roof; the pigeon made a low warble and fluttered suddenly away. And his fingers rippled over her, causing a very inappropriate part of her to tighten and become conspicuous.

"You seem to like it," he said.

His tone was so mild that he might have been commenting on her reaction to a flower arrangement. But as the meaning registered, a flush swept her. She cleared her throat. In a low voice, she said, "A cold bath does the same."

His delighted laugh ghosted along her neck. "You are
so
amusing," he purred. "Let me put my lips there, and I will convince you of the difference."

She did not need convincing. She felt the difference well enough. A cold bath cleared her thoughts. His touch muddied them and made her warm all over. I
could lean into him,
she thought. Even on a rooftop, he seemed strong and stable. How had he acquired such confidence? His birth had given him privileges, of course, and so had his sex. But there was more to it than that. Eyes were always on him. The newspapers dissected his smallest shenanigan. Yet he bore such attentions as though they hardly concerned him. She could not imagine him hesitating on the threshold of a room for fear he'd be judged and found wanting. If someone tried to cut him, he would only laugh. To live a life of such bold assurance, never caring what others thought . . . why, it must be another species of living, entirely. No uncertainty. Invulnerable to jibes and slanders. What could one not do, when so free?

She would lean on him, she thought. Just for a moment, up here, where no one would be looking. His shoulder was warm beneath her cheek; he smelled like bergamot and soap. It didn't count, somehow, to touch him like this. He did not move a millimeter; as her cheek came to rest on him, he barely breathed, that she could detect.

At length, he said softly, "Still afraid?"

She focused on a pair of tattered curtains in the distance. Someone had chosen the yellow fabric with hopeful intentions, but coal smoke had dulled it, and it unfurled now in ragged strips.

She sighed. One pretended these places did not exist. But one did so only in order to convince oneself of the vast distance that separated one's own life from this one. "Of course I'm afraid," she said softly. "I'm always afraid of something." Wasn't that her duty, as a woman? If it wasn't her reputation, it was her sisters'. If it wasn't Papa's project, it was Ana's future. Or the eyes that pressed on her everywhere she went. There was always something to watch out for. ' But what safer and more invisible place to be, than a roof? She found herself relaxing against him. His silences were comfortable. The sunlight was mellow, dimmed by clouds; and the air felt very mild, stirring around her in long, lazy breezes. Up here, bereft of any option but to wait, she might cease—just a moment— to worry about anything.

His hand still rested on her breast, but his fingers had stilled. The touch that had been so agitating now felt comforting. As though he soothed her by it. A lan-gorous feeling spread through her limbs. She let the full weight of her head fall onto his sleeve. "What do you mean?" he asked. "What are you afraid of?"

She could not answer him. She did not want to talk anymore. It was peaceful up here, in the late light of spring. The irony struck her dimly. "Never mind that."

Minutes passed. A question stirred in her mind, random, distracting. "How did you get those bruises you wore, that night at the Stromonds'?"

His fingers tightened very briefly—a reflex, she thought; she had surprised him somehow. "Had you asked me on solid ground, I would no doubt have told you that clumsiness runs in the family. Always falling up stairs, over curbs, into doorknobs." He paused. "But the truth is, I box. At a place very near here, actually."

"It must hurt."

"Yes," he said. "That's rather the point of it."

He was not speaking of the sport in general. She understood that. "You go to excesses," she said. "In all things. You are the most outre" gentleman I've ever met."

"A gentleman? And here I thought I was a scoundrel."

"You shouldn't sound so proud of it."

"I'm not," he said quietly. "But of course I must sound like I am. You, of all people, should know that. I have a role to play, just as you do."

Yes. He was right. She should not be sitting here, taking solace from his touch. The proper reaction was anger. Indignation. And later, perhaps, reprehension, for placing herself in this situation to begin with. "It is very tiring," she whispered.

"Tremendously." And then, after a moment: "Why are you afraid, Lydia?"

Strange to hear her name from his lips—and to realize there was no urge in her to object. How could she? His body had tensed as he'd spoken of pain, and even if it made no sense to her, she knew that he had given her a piece of honesty, one that clearly cost him something.

It would have been nice to be able to repay him with a truth of her own. But what could she say? Her worries were pedestrian. Any unwed woman of advancing years would share them. Her articles brought only pittances. Papa spared her what money he could, but most of his profits went back into his project. He would leave no settlement for her after he was gone. What would happen then?
My whole future,
she thought darkly: poor relative, unwanted burden, the face peering through the banisters at night, while the lovely guests laughed and danced below. Spinster aunt to Ana's future brood. Or worse yet, to Sophie and Georges. Wouldn't that be splendid. Nanny and governess in one, sustained through the unwilling largess of the man she'd once thought to love. Unpaid servant in the home she'd hoped to call her own.

Of course she worried. Who wouldn't, in her position?

But the idea of voicing such thoughts repelled her.

They would only serve to classify her as one more example of that pitiable type: the well-bred but penniless spinster. Every sensibility within her balked at the notion of counting herself so typical. I
am vain,
she thought. But she could not help it. As a child—dazed by a sense of wonder about the world, fed by Papas encouragement of her learning—she had dreamed of a special life. Being lauded and loved, respected and admired. But the world had very little use for a woman with nothing but wits. When people took note of her now, it was not for her mind
{the competence with which you mastered this strenuous roll
—oh, how pityingly George had said itl) but for the apt example she offered to debutantes.
Don't get above yourself,
mamas whispered to their daughters when passing her in a ballroom.
Don't count your chickens before they're hatched. You don't want to end up like her.

How could she speak of these things to him? What would
he
understand of it? It would only bore him. Besides, sitting here—beholding the vast, impersonal cruelty of London—her complaints seemed embarrassing. Look at these hovels! No special regard would keep her safe from them. Yearning for something more seemed childish in the extreme. She should be grateful. She was lucky to have an assured place in her sisters' homes. This anger, this sharpening desperation—she did not know what to do with them. The sullen skyline warned her where ambitions might lead her.

If she could have told him the truth, what would she have said? It would have made no sense.
Sanburne, I am afraid of myself.

"I can feel your heart racing," he murmured.

"Yes," she said unsteadily. It was so easy for
him
to talk honestly—a man whose options seemed infinite, whose absence would always be remarked. Who did not see possible repercussions everywhere he looked. "What of it? You are toying with me." Offering her chances she could not, must not take.

"There are other words for what I'm doing. Perhaps you're not worldly enough to know them."

There it was again: an assumption that her reluctance was owed to naivete, rather than its opposite. "I am not so sheltered," she said quietly. "I have been to Egypt, you know. My sisters haven't been, but I went. My father invited me a few years ago, just before the bombardment of Alexandria." And she had gone, gladly, to escape her humiliation. She had missed her sister's wedding, left it to Aunt Augusta to organize, simply because she could not bear to look the groom in the eye. Sophie had never forgiven her for it.

"Have you?" She could tell from his neutral tone that her segue puzzled him. "I've been myself, just this winter."

"For tourism."

"Yes, of course. And you?"

"No," she said. "I never saw Cairo, the Second Cataract, anything like that. Just Alexandria, really. My father was working nearby. I stayed in the Hotel de l'Europe for two months." And cried, mostly. She'd wallowed in the most terrible, disgusting pity for herself. It had chagrined her for a long time afterward, to think on it.

"That's a shame." His fingers resumed a rhythmic motion—the slightest stroke across her nipple. She tried to brace against it, but there was no leverage save the long, warm surface of his body against her side. "Not much to see in Alexandria," he mused, "at least in comparison with the rest of the country. Pompey's Pillar, of course." His fingernail scratched across the cloth. "Cleopatra's Needles."

"And the city." Her voice had gone husky. She would not acknowledge his fondling in any other way. If she spoke of it, she would have to come to some decision about it.

"The city?" His hand halted. "Don't recall it very clearly. We landed there; I was tired from the journey. Ugly—that's all I remember."

"You don't even remember the smell?"

"A swamp." His fingers recommenced, and a little sigh escaped her. He rewarded her with a firmer stroke, a growing aggression. "There's a swamp on the outskirts of town. It stank."

She produced a little laugh. "No, it didn't. It smelled of saltwater, and spices, and acacia trees. Somehow I hadn't realized that acacia blossoms smelled. Had you? But of course they smell: they smell sweet." She turned her face into his shoulder again, breathed in the scent of him. He was not for her, that much was clear. But he smelled delicious, and his mind was on her, just as his hand was. He was not thinking of anyone else. "I expect you also didn't bother to spend time at the harbor."

He drew back, just enough to provoke her into looking up. At this proximity, his eyes were purely extraordinary. The silver irises melted into a ring of gold around his pupils. "The harbor," he repeated softly, his lips a breath from hers.

"You were tired, of course." She whispered it. "And the harbor is considered very ugly. But most of our sugar is trafficked through it. Did you know that?"

A line appeared between his brows. "I suppose."

"And probably some of the cotton you and I are wearing. You wouldn't have thought of it, at the time. You were probably thinking of Giza—or arranging your houseboat for the Nile trip. But now that I've told you . . ." She looked away from him, staring at the smudged horizon. "Well, you will wonder about the harbor. And next time you pass an acacia tree, you might stop and sniff it, for curiosity's sake."

His free hand took hold of her chin, turning her face toward him. "You are telling me something," he said steadily. "That much is clear. But I'm afraid you'll have to take pity on a less complex brain."

She gave her shoulders an impatient little roll to dislodge him. "There is nothing complex about it. I'm merely pointing out that it's easy to ignore what seems mundane, until the mundane becomes . .. elusive. And then it suddenly seems very interesting—for a short while, at least."

His mouth quirked. "Wait a moment. You think I take an interest in you because I find you ... mundane?"

"I think you find it puzzling that a woman like me might be able to resist you." This was her piece de resistance, the key, she thought, to driving him off: to let him know how clearly she understood him. No man liked to be obvious. "You wish to crack the riddle. It's a very tedious motive. And my disinterest is not mysterious either. I am not the sort of woman who is flattered by the attentions of a vain, shiftless dilettante."

He surprised her with a smile. "A woman like you. What sort of woman is that, I wonder?"

"A learned one," she said. "Sober. Focused. Set aside my resistance, and you will not find me so interesting. Call me bookish, if you like. Someone who values her dignity and pride, and will not be swayed by a pretty face."

"Oh, I think you're swayed, Lydia. I think you're so swayed that you can't bring yourself to push my hand away."

He liked her given name. This was the second time he'd spoken it.
I will not count.
"But I should," she said, more to herself than him.

"And there is a large part of your charm," he murmured. "You know the rules very well. But you don't believe in them very much, do you? After all, why else would you be here right now? And do not tell me you came to St. Giles for your father's sake."

The faint curve on his lips struck her. His smile seemed terribly intimate. As if he saw the thoughts passing in her head, and he commiserated with them.
Him!
This light-heeled, beautiful, maniacal creature. "I
am
here for Papa." That was certainly part of it.

But not all of it, maybe.