Bound by Your Touch (9 page)

He had been out too late. First the Novelty, where Dalton had found a brace of undepressed beauties— a couple of dancers and a receiving-house clerk, who spoke as elliptically as the telegrams she handled. Tilney had proposed taking them to the Cholomondleys' for a lark. It turned out that Michael and Melisande were entertaining, but their guests were Parisian, and easily amused. Champagne was opened. The opera dancers did a can-can on the dining room table, to great response. The clerk, not to be outdone, clambered onto the piano to belt out a rousing version of "The Boy I Love Is Up in the Gallery." But the liquor had toyed with her balance. In the final verse, she'd fallen onto and shattered a very nice vase. The Parisians had applauded, but the Cholomondleys proved less tolerant. James couldnt much blame them. The clerk had an awful voice, like a cat being tortured.

Expelled into the night, the party had transferred to Barnes's, where James had slouched on a plush red bench, comfortably drunk, and listened to the girls giggle as they drank Moet and Chandon from the botde. Easy enough. One more night marked off the calendar. But tedious, all the same. "Do you have another suggestion, then?" Dalton had asked. Indeed, he didn't. And afterward, he'd slept well—a deep, dreamless sleep. But not for long. His head still ached.

The sun slid over his face, making him wince and scrub a hand across his eyes. He reached for a stack of correspondence on the escritoire. The most recent accounts from his factories in Manchester. A letter from Elizabeth, barely decipherable. Written while drunk, no doubt, for Nello had been with her; he'd added his regards in a postscript. The last envelope bore no return address. The script, at least, was clear.
Return the Tears, or face their Curse.

Right-o. The third he'd received this week. It was amazing, the number of lunatics drawn from the woodwork whenever his name made the papers. He balled it up and shot it into the rubbish, then turned back to the window.

Belgravia's lanes were empty. Unfashionable hour to stir. In two hours, though, the road would be choked with phaetons. Adventurous ladies would take the reins in hand, leaving their nervous grooms to clutch for dear life in the tiger seat. Five hours hence, these same women would not be caught dead driving themselves. For their second trip to the park, only carriages or open barouches would do. God, but he was sick of Mayfair. It operated like a tedious piece of Swiss clockwork, and its thousands-strong flock of cuckoo birds moved so predictably to its beat that he could call their actions to the second. His understanding did not please him. If only he could scrub his brain clean of such trivia. Surely there were better uses for it than remembering a massive lot of nonsense.

But there lay the rub. Unlike a clock, this little world could not be smashed, and these idiotic trivia were not, in fact, so trivial. Much like the bars in a prison cell, they laid the outlines for the rest of his whole damned life. Phin's too, though he hadn't realized it yet. He thought inheriting the title had freed him, when in fact this storybook ending only marked his enclosure in another sort of cage.

"They are only customs," Stella had said once. "They don't have to be logical. They do no one any harm."

"Tell that to the Americans and South Africans," James had replied. "They feel the harm when they appear in a tim-whisky at three o'clock, and are sneered at by all of your friends."

She had smiled and patted his cheek. She was younger by a year, but liked to behave as if he were a child. "That's the point, silly. If they didn't give themselves away as foreigners, how would we know whom to cut?"

The image of her was so clear in his mind. She took after Moreland; bright blue eyes, hair of wheaten gold. But her face never appeared to him, now, without the bruises. God, how small and forsaken she had looked on the other side of those bars. The air rotten, reeking of vomit and shit, pierced with shrieks; and the other woman in the cell had been scratching her arms, silent, focused on her own mortification, raking long, deliberate furrows into her own bloodied flesh. Stella had curled into a ball in the corner and looked at him. She had not been able to speak, yet. But her eyes had pled for help. He could do
nothing.
They had dumped her in that pit and they had called it justice. He'd known she would die there. No question of it.

But somehow she'd survived. And after he'd raised holy hell, they'd transferred her to Kenhurst, where they said she had rooms to herself, and daily walks, and every comfort she might desire. He would have welcomed a demonstration of this paradise, but they wouldn't let him see her. At his first visit, he'd not made it past the asylum gates. On his second try, Dwyer, the asylum keeper, had called the police. They'd arrived soon enough, but not before he'd gotten the man's throat in his hands. Another minute, and Dwyer would not have been so smug. Dwyer would have been dead.

His father had sprung him from jail overnight. Indeed, Moreland had pulled strings so fast and forcibly that he'd snapped several puppets' necks. The magistrate had retired. The jailkeeper had been transferred. The policemen demoted. Dwyer alone emerged intact. Nothing would turn Moreland from his unswerving adoration of his daughter's jailer.

Christ, why would they not let him see her? All he wanted was one glimpse—enough to replace this last memory he had. The look on her face, that last time, almost made him wish he hadn't seen her at all.

A little laugh escaped him. There were a million ways to betray someone, weren't there? A simple thought could do it. Who was he to judge Lizzie if she drowned her guilt in wine, or abased herself in mislabeled lust for a tosser? As the bluestocking would remind him, they were only products of their society. And the beau monde had long since perfected the fine custom of shutting away anything ugly or troublesome—or of smothering it in a haze of debauchery. He was hardly innocent, on that count.

Oh, he did not wish to forget Stella. But sometimes he did feel a morbid fascination with her situation, at least as Dwyer had described it. Giving in would be so easy, in such circumstances. A schedule laid out, all the decisions made. An entire staff willing to force one through it if one could not work up the energy to do so oneself. No need to justify rising, dressing, cleaning one's face. Hers was a thoughdess progression through the allotted days, with nothing to oppose, nothing to choose. She did not deserve or need such treatment, but he could picture it well enough for himself.

Of course, the appeal was purely profane. It hurt to reflect upon, a pleasurable sort of agony, like tipping poison down one's throat for the sweetness of its taste. And the bile that rose in his throat as he sat here—well, that was the taste of contempt, aimed purely at himself.

A knock came at the door. His valet had returned; the buder stood at his shoulder. James sat up, mildly surprised to see them together. They nursed a sharp rivalry, which he was not, of course, supposed to know about.

"Sir," Gudge said. His unflappable buder was flushed. "Pardon the interruption, but you have a... visitor."

"At this hour?" Apparently he was not the only one who tired of convention.

"A most peculiar woman. I tried to turn her away, but she insists she must see you. Sir, her manner—well, before I had the footmen expel her, I thought it best to inform you."

Which meant that she spoke and dressed like a wellborn woman, and Gudge feared to manhandle her. "Did she give a name?"

"She is veiled," Norton said excitedly. "Head to toe, sir!

Gudge shot the valet a stern look. "She would not reveal her name. I expect she feared the servants might talk." The assumption clearly aggrieved him. Gudge prided himself on his zealous campaign against household gossip.

Well, James thought. And here he'd been braced for a boring morning.

The lady perched on a chair inside his study was swathed more comprehensively than an Ottoman widow. Her outfit looked to be an odd juxtaposition of mourning gear and slate-gray walking costume. No wonder she hadn't wanted to give her name. The servants would have dined out on this story for a month.

He closed the door with rather more force than required. The black crepe veil bobbed upright. "Sanburne?"

He leaned back against the door, fighting a laugh. "Cant you see through that thing?"

Black-gloved hands emerged to lift the veil. Up and up they clawed, revealing a slim white neck and pointy chin, then long, pink lips, pressed—as he was coming to believe was her habit—into a grim line. Next emerged the long, straight nose. Finally a wide-set pair of hazel eyes appeared. They narrowed on him. He'd yet to move an inch, but already she looked at him as though he'd committed treason. She would be far prettier if she managed to relax.

He gave her a moment to speak, but it seemed her audacity had overwhelmed her. Her deep, rapid breathing was audible from across the room. A pin came loose, and the veil sagged to one side; as she reached back to straighten it, she knocked her own nose.

A smile twitched his lips. She was not clumsy, precisely. He doubted Miss Boyce would ever do anything so disorderly as stumble. But even at their first meeting, he had been struck by the careless aggression of her movements. She inhabited her body as thoughdessly as a coat. It was strangely charming, this disconnection between brain and flesh. Rather like a dare. It made a man wonder what it would take to lure her awareness out from the disciplined confines of her brain to the soft, expansive surface of her skin.

He pushed off the door. "Come to give another performance?"

"I do not seek to entertain you," she said.

Yes, that much he'd guessed. He ran an eye down her figure. That spine of hers held her more rigidly upright than a backboard. What a queer, fierce duck she was! Her black hair was escaping its chignon; her gray skirts were muddied at the hem. Another woman might have armed herself before entering the lion's den—applied a bit of blush, or at least had a footman brush down her skirts. Then again, from what he'd seen of Miss Boyce, she did not stand in need of such commonplace armor. He took the seat opposite her. "Come to seduce me, then? I confess I'm hardly prepared for it. Barely combed my hair this morning."

She eyed him with dispassionate thoroughness. "You look well enough."

He was startled into a grin. "Do not flirt with me, Miss Boyce. I can't bear it."

Her brows rose. He gathered that she was intent upon delivering a repressive look. Alas, nature conspired against her. Her eyes turned down at the corners; it felt as though he were being taken to task by a puppy. "A springer spaniel," he said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"That's the sort of puppy I'd peg you for."

She had a nice color to her cheeks, when provoked. Classic roses-and-cream complexion, not a freckle or blemish to be seen—save the one at the edge of her mouth, poised precisely in the hollow of her upper lip. He'd spotted it the other night, and for some reason, felt compelled to put his finger by it.
The freckle marks the spot.
As he'd done so, her tongue—small, pink, wet— had peeked out to lick it. As though it tasted pleasant. He'd been badly tempted to have a taste himself. Amazing, after thirty long years, how one continued to surprise oneself.

"You are likening me to a
dog!"
she asked.

"I rather like dogs. And as dogs go, it's certainly a charming breed.”

Her jaw flexed. She was grinding her teeth. Bad habit, that. Good to know she had one. "Very well, tease me if you like. I know my behavior robs me of the high ground. But I will beg your indulgence, and ask you to behave yourself anyway."

Hard not to be impressed by such gall. "Bravo, Miss Boyce. You enter a man's home uninvited, then tell him to behave himself. Thackeray could not have scripted it better."

Her throat moved in a swallow. "All right, I suppose that was outrageous. But—I confess, my nerves are unsetded. You would not believe the morning I've had. My sisters required the brougham, and I could hardly tell them that I needed it to visit you. But there were no cabs about, so I was forced to catch an omnibus. And it turned out to be fake!"

He laughed. "There's irony, for you."

Her amber eyes opened wide. "Irony? It was astonishing! Unlicensed vehicles, masquerading as London Generals! There was a lady in the garden seats, very neatly dressed, whom I can only surmise was placed there to lure innocents. For a five-pence ride, they demanded a shilling! What
is
the world coming to?"

"Oh, indeed. The effrontery of the grasping peasant. Grows daily, I fear."

She scowled at him. "I am not a snob, sir. I think one can take a stand against theft without indulging in class politics."

"You're sharper than your average snob," he acknowledged. "I'm not sure whether to laud a female education, or suggest it be oudawed."

Her chin lifted. It had a provocative little point to it. He wondered if anyone had ever bitten her there. She'd gasped when he touched her, and the sound of it—so inadvertently, unwillingly sexual—had lingered with him since. Only a small, brief noise, but it had quite overshadowed the appeal of the dancers last night. As the realization came to him, he realized, with a stirring of interest, that he was not quite comfortable with the knowledge.

"I have always been smarter," she said. "My education had nothing to do with it." Noticing the twist to his lips, she added, "That amuses you?"

"It relieves me. I had been wondering if you possessed any official faults."