Christmas Delights (11 page)

“You know, Noble, I feel as though I am losing your attention.” The earl pushed the hatch completely open and used his arms to lever himself out of the submarine. He sat on the edge and clasped one knee to his chest. “What’s troubling you, old man?”

“We’re done for tonight,” Lewis said. “If we have to flip this bastard over, we’ll need all the men.”

“Will it damage the instruments?”

Lewis shrugged. “We can do it in the water. That will be easier on the men.”

“I was asking about the instruments.”

“I don’t bloody know. I wasn’t planning to flip the thing when I designed it. What does it matter, anyway? If we break something, we’ll fix it.”

The earl nodded. “Fair enough. Best to let her dry out a bit. We’ll resume tomorrow.”

Lewis found his shapeless old coat and stomped back up to the house, the earl at his side. “So tell me, Nicholas, was this party designed just to find your sisters husbands, or were some of the ladies supposed to be dangling after you?”

The earl let out a dramatic sigh. “I can avoid the lot of them when I work in the stables.”

“You have to fill your nursery one of these days.”

“I hope to unload my sisters first. I would love to send my aunt away, too, but I don’t know how I can manage that. Too many women in the Fort, if you ask me. I’m not going to add another.”

“You don’t have to reside here. You and your wife could live in London.”

The earl was shaking his head as they reached the back terrace. “I like it here. They can go, instead of rusticating here. But what about you? Who is mending your shirts these days?”

“I don’t have a title to secure.” Lewis pulled open the door and they stepped into a corridor outside the ballroom.

“No, but you seem far more interested in the women than I am. I’ve seen you looking at Lady Allen-Hill with a certain gleam in your eye. No surprise, in truth. She has blossomed since marrying my unfortunate cousin.”

Lights flared on in the corridor. Someone had lit the lamps. A footman, probably, to make sure all was in readiness as the guests moved into the ballroom for a few sets of country dancing.

“I cannot deny that she is appealing.” Lewis’s eyes adjusted slowly to the light, after the darkness outside. “But she’s not for me. Liverpool, you know.”

He heard a low-pitched laugh and recognized the voice instantly. Lady Allen-Hill; Victoria. Had she heard him? But what did it matter? She knew he was settled down in Battersea, like an old ship, no longer seaworthy, docked for a final time.

The group of women reached them. Victoria, Lady Barbara, Rose Redcake, even Maud Wilson, the Dickondell cousin. He supposed they were all dressed to dance, but only Victoria’s ebony, low-cut gown caught his eye.

“How delightful,” Lady Barbara said. “Are you going to dance with us, Bullen?”

The earl stopped, his gaze fixed on his sister in a kind of mute horror.

Lewis traded glances with Victoria, but then his stomach rumbled loudly. “Off to dinner,” he said.

“Oh, but you must dance,” his cousin Rose insisted.

“I think Mr. Noble would faint dead away from hunger if forced to,” Victoria opined. “No, we will have to do without them tonight.”

“I think I will go up to my room,” Lewis said, hoping she understood his point. “Have a tray sent up.”

The women turned into the ballroom, their heads held stiffly in that position of wounded feminine pride so familiar to men who had thwarted desires.

“Why don’t we retire to the billiards room?” the earl suggested. “We can order sandwiches and have a cigar.”

“And talk submarines to the wee hours. No, I think I prefer to ruminate quietly,” Lewis said. “Go dance with Lady Barbara. She could use some attention after finding out your younger sister is to be married first.”

“Why, Noble, you sound positively feminine.”

“I lived with my cousins for years. I remember how important things like who became engaged first were.”

“I suppose you are right. If I don’t stroke her ego, I’m sure to pay in a dozen little ways.” The earl directed his attention to a group of men walking toward them. “Off to dance? No time for brandy first?”

The Baron of Alix offered a rueful smile. “Engagement party, you know.”

Lewis saw Ernest Dickondell in the middle of the crowd. From the blurry gaze and off-kilter tilt of his tie, he suspected the man was blind drunk already. It was time to go before he was forced to join the party. The corridor seethed with people, some he recognized and others he did not. He suspected there would be a late start on work the next morning as everyone in the castle would be celebrating.

When he reached his room, he rang the bell to order food, then cast himself onto the sofa. Expecting silence, he started at the sound of Eddy’s congested “hello.”

“Good gad, I’d forgotten all about you,” Lewis exclaimed.

“S’all right.” Eddy sniffed. “I can ring for anything I need.”

“Not any better?”

“Worse,” he said with a cough. “I hope no one else gets this, though the maid who brought me tea earlier was sniffling.”

“I should send you home now,” Lewis decided. “You’ll be down for the rest of the house party.”

Eddy’s face contorted in mock outrage. “Don’t put me on a train now, guv. Not when I can be sick in comfort.”

Lewis checked his conscience and decided it would be cruel to send the boy away, no matter how convenient it might be for him. He had made himself responsible for Eddy, and who knew how much trouble he could get up to between here and London? “Very well. Go and rest. I’m going to order food. What do you want?”

Not surprisingly, the boy had no appetite.

An hour later, Lewis had eaten and bathed the lake muck off his chilled body. An hour after that, he was pacing the hearth rug, thinking over each and every rivet in the submarine’s skin, trying to decide if there was a way of finding the leak without flipping the fragile craft. Seams ran between the wide wood planking of the interior floor. Could he test their seaworthiness without damaging anything?

Probably not. But if he pulled out the benches, and then the planks, he could reach the exterior from the inside and do a water test. As long as they didn’t strip any bolts, it would all go back in smoothly enough.

After twenty minutes, the hearth rug became too small for his pacing. He could hear Eddy’s raspy, congested breathing from his bed. At least the lad slept soundly. Lewis went into the corridor and walked down to the staircases leading to the next levels and then back again. When he reached his door, he saw a light flickering at the other end of the hall, near the window that looked out to the lake. The servants had never left a light there before. He walked toward it, eventually distinguishing a dark form huddled over something.

“Lady Allen-Hill,” he said when he came close enough to see it was her, still in her evening dress, but with her dressing gown thrown over the deliciously revealing, low-cut confection. “Writing letters at this late hour?”

She glanced up, seemingly shocked out of deep thought. “No. I was thinking about five melting coins cold.”

“What does that mean?” Bemused, he sat across from her in the other armchair in the alcove.

“My fairy tale has a princess who has to solve riddles to win her betrothed back from the clutches of her stepmother’s shade, but I imagined myself into a corner. I don’t know how to solve the riddle of five melting coins cold.” She smiled ruefully, folding her hands over her dressing gown.

“Metal is forged and tempered. In other words, heated and then cooled. Metal for coins has to be melted, then formed into rods for slicing. I don’t know the actual process, but perhaps the rods are tempered.”

“I guess they will have to be in my story,” Victoria muttered. “Evil coins? Cursed coins? Blessed coins?”

“Coins forged in hell?” he suggested.

She narrowed her eyes. “Now you are teasing me, but I don’t want to be a storyteller with a bad story.”

“How about a creature with hands of fire who melts metal, then passes them to a creature with hands of ice?”

“What would Princess Everilda have to do to achieve her quest?”

“They could appear and start juggling the burning and icy coins around her. She’d have to escape them.”

“Not bad,” she said. “I could work with that. Thank you, Lewis.” She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

“Mind the candle,” he said, pushing it out of the way.

“I was.” She reseated herself, holding her dressing gown at the throat. “How is Eddy?”

Somehow, this was not the way he had imagined their first private encounter in days. She seemed distant. Had he lost her interest already? “Sick. I wanted to send him home but had second thoughts.”

“Penelope was unwell, too.”

He drummed his fingers on the armrest. “They don’t give us much chance to speak. Well, that and Bullen’s project.”

“I thought perhaps you considered that to be for the best.” Her voice was quiet.

Her words made him louder. “Really?”

“I should not have said that.” She glanced down.

He took a deep breath, remembering what Bullen had said about stroking the egos of ladies to keep them from causing unpleasantness. “I like you, Lady Allen-Hill.”

“It is a very partial affection,” she said softly.

He saw the hurt in her expression and so found himself rising, blowing out the candle, and letting the smoke drift around him as he lowered himself to the table at her knees. Wasn’t lust enough? “I ache for you.”

She leaned forward. One hand moved. She placed it against him, at the top of his trousers. Then she slid it down. He felt himself strain against the weight of her palm, wondered if she would trace him through the wool. What would she do next? He longed for curtains to hide them away from prying eyes.

“This is where it aches,” she whispered. Then her fingers left his manhood desolate as they rose. She rapped her nails against his forehead. “Not here.” She moved her hand again, over his heart. “Or here. I must at least have your thoughts or you will never think of how we are to be together.”

“And if you had my heart?”

“Then I would fight to have you.”

He exhaled, the ache in his groin becoming a flame he wanted to douse inside her. “I believe you would, Lady Allen-Hill.”

“Call me Victoria,” she breathed. “I hate that name. I never really earned it. If he hadn’t died, the marriage could have been annulled for all that he never touched me.”

“But—”

“You are the only one.”

Her fierceness burned into him despite the dark. The force of her words bit like shrapnel. “I took your virginity?”

“I gave it to you. I gave it to myself.” She lost a little of her heat as her tone turned wry. “A virgin widow is absurd.”

He felt confused yet strangely seduced. “I do not know what to say. What do you want me to say?”

He felt her breath puff on his cheek. “Only that you want me, Lewis.”

“You know I do, but where could we go tonight?”

Only silence for a moment; then he heard the whisper of her skirts. “I didn’t say I wanted you to desire amour with me, just me.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“I don’t know. I don’t have enough experience.”

Frustration rising, he stood and pulled her to her feet. Without knowing quite what he was doing, he led her to the window and pressed her against the icy pane. When she gasped, he took her open mouth with his, pressing his entire body to hers. Her mouth moved eagerly with his, her tongue darting out to touch his lips. He responded by exploring the insides of her mouth, stealing her every breath. As if in surrender, her head fell back and her hands came up, sliding along his hips, reminding him there was more to discover than just her mouth.

“Victoria.” His fingers crumpled into her skirts, lifting them. The lavender scent of clean linen and warm woman diffused around him as she changed her stance, widening her legs. He pushed through the slit in her drawers and found her heat. She gasped into his mouth as he separated her warm, swollen lower lips and plunged a finger inside her.

He ripped his mouth from hers and moved it to her ear. “This is wanting to be with you.” He pulled his finger out, then matched it with another and thrust them both inside. “I do want you.”

“Oh, yes, Lewis,” she breathed.

Hosannas of praise rang through his mind when her hands found his trousers and began to tug the fabric apart. He suckled her earlobe, bit her neck, tongued her throat as she made a hash of his clothes. He heard a button pop off, a seam rip, but then, gloriously, he was free. A hit of cold air shocked him; then her warm palm had him covered. He moved against her hand, not caring to hide his desperation as he circled her pearl with his thumb, trying to match her pleasure to his.

L
ewis could hear Victoria breathing hard in his right ear. His mathematical mind calculated that this meant she was not too much shorter than he, tall for a woman. Yes, he could take her against a wall without lifting her. Then he shut down the analysis before he could decide whether loving her again was a good idea or not.

He reached for her right leg and pulled it up along his, then tore his fingers from her cleft. The wet, sucking noise, the smell of her, pushed all further thoughts aside, leaving only want, only sensation.

“Don’t,” she whispered.

“What?”

“Don’t stop. I need you, inside.”

His cock found her swollen lips, already slick with her juices. He slid home, gasping at the precision of her fit. His hand was shocked by cold when it made contact with the window behind her head, but he tempered that icy sensation by warming his lips against her open, heated mouth.

She broke the kiss, whispering in a broken voice, “Lewis, how I’ve missed you.”

“Yes,” he said in return. “I know.”

His hips pistoned against her yielding body. He felt her fingers slide shyly around his buttocks, then grip harder with each thrust. Though he wished he could tell her to lose all inhibition, he realized there was little more he could ask for up against a wall in an open corridor. Her hand on his bum, her teeth raking the edge of his jaw, her little moans every time he seated himself fully, were all he needed to stay in the moment. The way her honey dripped around his cock, signifying her pleasure at his intimate touch. The grip of her body, that tensing and releasing of intimate muscles, undid him.

God, he was coming now. He felt his palm slick under her thigh, sweat on his lower back. Her fingers slipped, then gripped him again, more intimately, closer to the cleft of his buttocks, pulling him apart slightly. The air snaked cold against the back of his thighs, making him twitch and enter her again. Her head thudded against the window, just as her body clenched around him with heavenly pressure, pulling him with her into shuddering, mindless, release.

When he had control of his limbs again, he cradled her head in one hand and let go of her thigh. Still inside her, he reached for a chair and lowered himself onto it, until he was shrouded in hair and shawl and evening gown. Bending his head, he kissed the tops of her breasts, licking into the deep shadow between them. How he wanted to take her back to his room and do this all over again, but Eddy mustn’t know. He couldn’t betray Victoria’s privacy even with his own apprentice.

“This was so naughty,” she murmured, her lips sliding slickly along his ear. “I thought marriage would be like this, at least I longed to have it be so.”

“I am sorry your wishes went unfulfilled.”

“Me, too, but I shall remember this forever. You have such power over my body. I never knew I could feel so much, just that I had to surrender. It is a woman’s lot.”

“You think it is only the woman who must? I do not agree. You have more power than you know.”

“My father has more power over me than I have over one hair on your head.” Her fingers tangled with the curls behind his ear. He needed a barber, and badly, but the ecstatic pleasure he felt along his scalp from her gentle tugs had him rethinking that.

“Don’t give him your power,” Lewis said, trying to focus on her words. He understood she was saying something important. “You are a widow. I do not believe your husband was poor.”

“No, but other than his funds, there was nothing. All the property was entailed. I never had a home aside from my father’s house.”

“Why not set up an establishment of your own? In London. That is where you want to be, correct?”

“There is a duty I owe my father. I am his only child.”

“Don’t you think he will adopt Penelope? Her parents do not seem to be able to care for her.”

“More that my uncle does not want to,” she said slowly. “I have yet to entirely understand the situation.”

“I think you can obtain more independence, if you are willing to fight for it. Especially with there being another young blood relative.”

“I can’t sacrifice Penelope to my desires.”

He felt himself slip out of her as she pulled away. Her petticoats would be stained, but she didn’t seem to mind. And they had forgotten her rubbers. “I do not suggest sacrifice, merely that the family business is not only in your hands. Besides, Penelope might want to remain in Liverpool.”

Victoria laughed. The husky sound rumbled through his chest, luscious and feminine, though her voice was pitched low for a woman.

His cock stirred, and all he could think to say was, “Hmmm.”

“Be still,” she whispered. “I think someone is coming, but we are safe here in the shadows.”

He pulled her head against his throat, tucking her face against him. But her dark hair was a better camouflage than his pale hands, so he slid his arms under her shawl and listened to her breathe.

After a moment, he heard the same faint footsteps as she did, but then a door opened. Probably Adela Dickondell and Maud Wilson, who shared the room next to Victoria’s. After a couple of minutes, all sound had been swallowed into the dark.

“I should go,” Victoria said.

“Should you?” He didn’t want to let her go.

“It would be foolish to risk further exposure. There are other rooms along this corridor.”

“I wish I could bring you back to my room, sleep with you in my arms.”

He felt the whisper of air when she shook her head. “I don’t think you do, not really. You’ll want to wake early, go to the stables, fix your submarine.”

“You don’t think I would lie abed, waiting for you to wake so we could take this pleasure for ourselves again?”

She smiled against his jaw. “I think you prefer more limited interludes, but I will not complain.”

“I hope you underestimate me.” But he suspected she was right.

“You aren’t sure.” She kissed him, just where the stubble of his beard met the smooth curve of his cheek.

Honesty was not useful here. “Thank you for making love with me.”

She sighed. “Thank you for helping me with my tale.” As she rose, her skirts rustled, then paper rattled and she was away, back down the hall, leaving him alone with his thoughts. They were not pleasant ones either. Would he, just as he was, ever be able to make a woman happy? Why did he only want complicated women?

In the morning, Victoria found her father in the corridor outside her room. She had been thinking about declining breakfast, since she had indulged quite heavily in pudding the night before. While she had danced, then dueled intimately with Lewis, she was convinced her corset could not be laced quite as tightly as it needed to be this morning.

“Here to escort me downstairs?” she asked him.

He looked startled, as if he hadn’t considered spending time with her, even though he’d been lurking.

“Weren’t you here to speak with me?”

He coughed. “Of course, my dear. Where is your cousin?”

“Already gone to the nursery for breakfast.”

“Are you going to breakfast?”

“I thought I would walk around the lake.”

He hesitated, glancing down the corridor. She wondered if he’d had an assignation . . . but no, this was her father. Authoritarian he might be, but he certainly was not licentious.

“You do not have to attend me,” she said. “I am happy to be alone.”

“No, no, I could stretch my legs. Are you dressed warmly enough?”

She nodded. They stopped in his room so he could outfit himself to face the late December chill. Wind rattled the windows of the house as they exited from the ground floor, but down by the lake the air died to the level of breeze. She took a deep breath of the marine air and relaxed. Her father, however, did not have relaxation in mind.

“Where do you stand with your suitors?” he asked.

“Taking care of Penelope has made it a difficult process,” she said.

“Nonsense.” He took her arm to lead her around a muddy spot. “It is good for men to see you caring for a child.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “When men are courting, I don’t think that is what they want to see.”

“When they are courting you, they had better. You are not some young miss just out of the schoolroom, but a widow.”

“I’m still young,” she protested. A gull cawed, startling her as it came from somewhere behind and flew across the lake.

“Who do you prefer? Parker-Bale or Dandy-Willow?”

“Neither. They are a matched pair of buffoons.”

“The Baron of Alix, then? I’ve seen you speaking.”

They reached the first turn. The Fort was out of sight now. She breathed in the unadulterated landscape, the browns and greens of winter. But her father would not let her commune with the nature spirits. “He is Scottish, father. If you will not let me live in London, surely you won’t want me in Edinburgh.”

“If you can win over the Earl of Bullen, you can live anywhere you like,” he said. “I’ll hire managers for the business.”

She chuckled. “I haven’t seen him so much as look at a woman, unless it is to glare at one of his female relatives.”

“He has a mistress, you know. In Pevensey.”

“Really?” she said tartly. “I wonder when he has time to see her.”

Her father sighed and pulled her out of the way of a puddle. “I am attempting to make you understand that it is possible for him to be tempted, crude though I’m being. But you are a woman of the world now. You must know these things.”

“Of course, Father. As your only child, it is natural I have more exposure to reality than a similar lady would. I do not mind. But I think the earl is out of the question for the remainder of this house party, at least. He is obsessed with the submarine.”

“It would be easier to have his attention in London, but I’m not sure he spends any time there.”

“So that is all the suitors, then?” She wished he would mention Lewis.

“I want you to consider Samuel Dickondell.”

“He’s twenty, a mere stripling.”

“Not so much younger than you. A country education, but rumored to be intelligent enough.”

“I much prefer Lewis Noble,” she snapped.

“Intelligent, for certain,” her father agreed. “With all the improvements he made to the Redcake factories, he would be an asset to our enterprises. But will he go to Liverpool? I don’t believe so.”

“No, but couldn’t you hire the managers you just mentioned? I’m sure we could spend some time there; that is, if he was willing to marry me.”

Her father narrowed his eyes. “I won’t sacrifice the business to hired managers for anything less than a title. I will concede that Mr. Noble has distant ties to fashionable society, but that is all.”

“What about my happiness?”

“Why?” Her father’s tone became sarcastic. “Pray do not tell me you have allowed yourself to be so foolish as to fall in love with an inventor.”

She stared at the gray, lumpy surface of the lake, the waving ferns at the edges. A sense of despair came over her, an unfamiliar sensation. Had she fallen in love with Lewis? Or was it merely her introduction to passion that had her so entranced by him? “Of course not, Father,” she replied, doubting the truth of her answer.

“I understand what you are telling me, however. You want a mature man, a man of intelligence.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t suggested the eldest Dickondell,” she said with a sourness that matched the feeling in her stomach. She needed a cup of tea, heavily laced with cream, to settle it.

“He is spoken for, whether he knows it or not.”

“To his cousin?”

“No, she has nothing to offer. The Dickondells are going to do very well for themselves in this generation.”

“If you say so.”

“The earl and the baron are of an age. Late twenties. If we cannot have the earl, I suggest we concentrate on the baron. Edinburgh is not so very far away.”

She heard the slight crack in her father’s voice and squeezed his arm. “If I leave you, Father, you could take Penelope in. She’s a clever little thing. Why not hire a governess for her and have her live with you? She will be as much company as I ever was.”

“She’s an angry child,” her father said.

“Give her a chance. Or you could remarry.”

“As difficult as marriage has been for you, the idea does not come highly recommended.”

“You would do well with the ladies if you exerted yourself. Lady Florence, for instance, would be an excellent choice.” Or a horror, Victoria’s conscience argued, but at least she was appropriate, and titled.

Her father’s eyes widened. “Do you wish to kill me, daughter?”

Victoria laughed and rested her head on her father’s shoulder for a moment. “Not Lady Florence, then. What about Lady Barbara? She is my friend. You might be able to persuade her, especially now.”

Her father made a noise but didn’t respond. She saw men coming around the next bend of the lake. A couple of the Dickondells, the baron.

“Working up an appetite before breakfast, eh, Courtnay?” Clement asked, brandishing his walking stick.

“Nothing like a brisk morning,” her father said. “Would you be so kind as to walk my daughter back to the house? I have an appointment.”

Clement looked confused but agreed. Victoria smiled at the baron, who offered her his arm. Her father nodded his approval and took off on a side path that she thought led into town. How odd he was being, but at least he’d smiled slightly at the baron’s gesture.

As she walked along, the men all solicitous of her boots on the muddy path, she wondered how she could possibly make love to the baron while mooning over her late-night lover. She wanted no touch but his.

When they were out of earshot of her father, Clement turned to her with a slight smile. “I do apologize, Lady Allen-Hill, but we are going to ride this morning.”