Jade Lee - [Bridal Favors 03] (22 page)

Irene was unsettled and more than a little annoyed at Grant for making her feel such emotions. Hard enough that she’d had to stand at Hyde Park, while girl after girl made eyes at him, but for him to intrude on her evening was too difficult. Add to that the memories he had stirred when he’d asked about Nate, and she was incensed. She had finally put her life into a semblance of order, and here he was unsettling everything.

And yet, when he asked her to unlock her bedroom window, she was powerless to say no. If nothing else, she wanted to release some of her rancor on his well-deserving head. And perhaps, more truthfully, her body longed to kiss him as much as she wanted to rail at him. It was nonsensical, especially since she was a sensible woman, but there it was. And here she was sliding open her bedroom window to see him perched rather unnervingly in the nearby tree.

“Good God, are you insane?” she gasped.

He quirked an eyebrow then shrugged. “Step back,” he said in a harsh whisper.

“Why?” Then she looked at him tensing on the limb to make the leap, and she gripped the windowsill in horror. “No!” she all but screamed. But as she was trying to keep her voice down, it came out more as a hiss. “Absolutely not!”

“I mean to talk to you, Irene. And I will not shout for everyone to hear.”

She grimaced, seeing his intent clear as day. Looking around, she judged the jump: about three feet. Not very far, but if he missed, the drop could be lethal. There was only one solution. She leaned out the window and extended her arms.

“Irene!” he gasped, but she was already stretched far.

“Grab hold,” she said. “I will pull you inside.”

He didn’t like it, but she didn’t give him a choice. So, with her leaning out and him stretching in, they managed to pull him, such that his belly landed heavily on the windowsill.

“Umph!” he cried, his breath hot on her face. Then there was the awkward struggle and maneuver as he wiggled himself inside. She stepped back, trying to give him room. Fortunately, that also gave her a nice moonlit view of his backside.

“What are you staring at?” he asked somewhat irritably, as he finally pulled his feet inside.

“Hmmm? Just the rip you now have in your trousers.” She waved at his left thigh.

He looked down, poked a finger through the tear, and cursed softly under his breath. “I just had this made. The mill won’t send more bolts of this for weeks.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. He lay sprawled on her floor, and all he could do was bemoan his attire. “I should be very cross with you, Lord Crowle,” she said. “But I find it hard to berate a man with a hole in his pants.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Truly? I shall remember that and be sure to sport holes often.”

“Do you expect to irritate me so very much then?”

He sobered slightly, and his head tilted to one side as he looked steadily at her. “Probably.” His eyes smoldered, leaving no doubt whatsoever as to what he was thinking. And even if she failed to understand his meaning, her body responded without her willing it. Her breasts grew heavy; her blood turned hot. And by slow inches, her knees gave way, until she was kneeling directly in front of him.

“Kiss me, Irene,” he pleaded softly. “You do not know how much I have ached for you this day.”

She shook her head, meaning to pull back. Instead, she found herself moving closer. “You are so different than Nate.” After all, her husband would have already claimed her by now. Instead, Grant sat on the floor asking permission, while his eyes burned straight through her heart.

He paused a moment, his body tightening, his breath short. “I am incredibly jealous of a dead man.”

“Don’t be,” she whispered. “You are your own man, and… and I find I like you even better for it.”

“Just
like
?” he asked, a note of hurt in his voice.

She swallowed. Did he really wish for her to confess? That sometime between their first dance and his first kiss, she had tumbled desperately in love with him? She hadn’t even realized until this afternoon the depths of her feelings.

She loved him, and she hated him for that. She was doomed now to love a man who would give himself to a girl. One husband loved and lost; one lover kissed then allowed to walk away. How ridiculous was her life. And yet, with his breath on her face and his body heating hers, she could not turn away.

So she kissed him with all the wishes in her soul. He returned it a thousand fold, and yet it was just the thrust of his tongue, the tease of his lips, and the tremble in his hands. Then the slow, almost jerky, push to the floor. It was as if he fought himself, trying to hold back, but unable. Meanwhile, she slid her hands around his neck, allowing one to sink into his hair, the other to slide over his broad shoulder to press into his back. How she longed for him to be naked.

“I am annoyed with you,” she murmured into his mouth.

“Why?” he asked as he trailed kisses along her jaw and neck.

“Why did you ask about Nate? Why do you stir up something so long gone?”

He paused, and she saw him flinch. “You loved him?”

“Yes,” she admitted.

“Do you love him still?”

“Yes.” Then at his grimace, she continued, trying to put voice to her thoughts. “He was my world, Grant. I was overcome by him. Always. And when he was gone, it was as if I had ceased to be.”

He swallowed, nodding slowly.

“But I am more than I was then. I am not that girl to be lost in a larger-than-life man.” She touched his face, drawing his gaze back. “You are different than him. You don’t create me. You… match me. And that is so very different.”

He studied her face, and then he slowly sunk down to kiss her again. Long and deep. And when he pulled back, his words were a whisper. “That is why I asked. That is what I wanted to know.”

She frowned. “But do you understand? Do you understand how I was a girl then but am a woman now?”

“That,” he said, as he slid his hands beneath her skirt, “I know very well.”

She felt his hands then, strong and sure, as he slowly spread her legs. She opened for him, embarrassed and terribly hungry—for his touch between her legs, deep and penetrating, then swirling in long strokes across her most sensitive flesh.

“I take it back,” she gasped as she arched into his caress. “You erase everything but yourself. Oh Grant… fill me. Please.”

But he didn’t. He continued to pleasure her. “I don’t want to erase you, Irene. I want to… match you.”

She opened her eyes. “
Fill
me,” she said firmly, almost loudly, but she remembered at the last moment to keep her voice low.

He nodded, but he didn’t stop what he was doing. He stroked her, he pleasured her, and she writhed beneath his ministrations. It was so maddening. Not the thrust or the swirl, but that he didn’t do them fast enough or hard enough. He was casual as he stroked her, his touch too light. And though his eyes burned as they watched her, he still did not take her where she wanted to go.

“Grant!” she cried. “What are you doing?”

“Watching,” he answered with a smile. “Will you marry me?”

“What?” she gasped, completely startled. He appeared shocked as well, his hand suddenly stilling as he pressed his thumb against her hard button.

Without conscious thought, she arched onto his hand, pressing his thumb deeply against her. Her body contracted around him. Everything drew tight, compressed into a tiny dot. Then while she was still staring in shock, her body released. Like a flame bursting free, she convulsed, pleasure powering through her. Bright, explosive. A brilliant firework of ecstasy.

He held her gaze the whole time, this man who wasn’t a fiery explosion himself, but who gave them to her whenever they touched. And as the light in her body shimmered then slowly faded, he gave her a reverent smile.

“You are so beautiful when you do that.”

She sighed, her body growing languid as the warm glow of pleasure lingered. “Grant…”

“I am Lord Crowle and am here on my knees asking you to marry me. Will you, Irene? Will you do me this great honor and become my wife?”

“No.”

The word was out—bald and cold—before she could think clearly. And as he recoiled backward, his hand pulling to the inside of her knee, she bit her lip and struggled to gather her wits. Straightening to a sitting position, she faced him with as much clarity as she could muster.

“You are Grant, Lord Crowle, and I am not the woman who will hostess your dinners, give you an heir, or be your countess.”

“The devil you won’t!”

“I am a purchaser. The man I love is Mr. Grant, and he will never be an earl. I will never be a countess.” She sighed and let her body slump. “I’m sorry, Grant. So damned sorry.”

“You’re the daughter of an earl. Of course you can be my countess!”

She opened her eyes. “A countess cannot be a purchaser. She cannot spend her days negotiating with a ship’s captain, no matter how many footmen protect her. It is not done, and you know it as well as I do.”

“What if I don’t care?”

She tightened her body further, pulling in her legs to support her better. His hand slid backward until he only touched her ankle, and she was secretly glad they were still connected. “How long have you been back in London? Not as Mr. Grant, but as Lord Crowle?” She didn’t wait for him to answer, but continued relentlessly. “A week? Two? You are only now remembering what it is like to be an earl. It will not take much longer before you realize the truth.”

He pulled back, his brow arching to regal heights. The regent himself could not look more aristocratic. “And what truth is that?”

“That I am a purchaser, not a countess. And I will not give up the one to become the other.”

She saw her words hit him. In truth, she hadn’t even realized how final her opinion was until she spoke it out loud. And when he spoke—his tone almost broken—she felt the horror of what she had said aloud.

“You said you loved me,” he whispered. “That you love Grant. That’s me.”

She nodded. “For a little while longer, yes. But not for long.” She touched his face and was relieved when he did not draw away. She felt the roughness of his beard, the heat of his body, but most of all, she felt the vulnerability with his every ragged breath. “Do you recall when you seduced me in the inn?”

“After the attack.”

She shook her head. “When you danced with me. We were fully clothed, but you seduced me completely in that one dance. You coaxed me, you tempted me, and you offered everything you had to me.”

“I remember,” he said.

“That is the man I love. But then you commanded me to join you at the park. You hired a runner to watch me and spoke with Papa without even discussing it with me.”

“I am protecting your life!”

“You are taking control as Lord Crowle. And that man will not tolerate a wife who works. Certainly not one who works on the docks.” She made the reference crude, suggesting what was obviously not true. She was no doxy, but an earl had no choice but to equate the two. A woman who worked was not fit to be a countess.

“I don’t want to change you. I’ve never wanted that!”

“I won’t change. And Lord Crowle won’t want who I am. He can’t and still maintain his position in the peerage.”

His hand tightened on her ankle, his grip not painful, so much as possessive. “You love me!”

She nodded. “And I will let Grant into my bed as often as he wants.”

“But I am Grant.”

She nodded, her heart breaking. They both knew she was right. Still, she lifted her chin to him. “Then make love to me, Grant. Fill me.”

He hesitated. She saw his body urging him forward, even as his mind rebelled. The aristocrat wanted her, body and soul, but she would not give both—only her body. He shuddered, his expression sliding into anguish. “I cannot lose you, Irene.”

“I am right here.” She reached behind herself and unbuttoned what she could of her dress. It was frustrating and awkward, and after a moment, she gave up the struggle. She looked at him, about to ask him to help, when she realized he was no longer sitting before her.

He’d stood and was even now moving for the door.

“Grant?” she whispered.

“I cannot go out by way of the window. I think I can slip out undetected. The house is silent, and the guards already knew I was here.”

She flushed, wondering what the men thought of her now. But that was a small concern compared to the sight of him leaving her bedroom. She didn’t want him to go. She had slept before in his arms and longed to do it again. Not to mention the other pleasures they had shared.

“Why are you leaving?”

“You only want half of me, and I am done with being a splintered man.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but mostly, to tempt him back to her side. He never gave her a chance. After a quick nod, he slipped outside her door and closed it quietly. She could have followed. She could have, but how would it have looked to be chasing a man departing her bedroom? And besides, what would she say? She would not change her mind. She would not accept his proposal.

So she let him go. And with that decision came a host of other emotions. Like tiny bits of debris—ashes perhaps—the cold bits left from the fireworks. Fear was part of it. Weariness came next. And the cold desolation of… nothing. It was startling, really, how quickly it all collapsed.

She heard the quiet thud of the front door as he left and with him went nearly all her strength. She used the last of it to climb into her bed fully dressed. Her pillow absorbed her tears, but did nothing to ease the ache in her heart. And in the morning, she did not rise.

It was no matter, she thought, as she turned her back on the sun. After all, she had no appointments. Everything had been scheduled for the day before. As for tomorrow’s appointments, there was nothing urgent then either. She could cancel them easily enough.

She left the message for Carol to do just that. At some point later, she began counting ticks of the clock. And so she passed another day.

Grant felt a hole in his gut—and an ache in his balls—the second he left Irene’s presence. He spent much of the painful walk back to the inn silently cursing the woman. She’d thrown him over, and for the most ridiculous of reasons. He’d certainly known of women who would look down on him for his five years as a working man. He’d never expected the reverse snobbery, never thought a woman would refuse him because she didn’t want to be a countess. The idea was preposterous, and he mulled over the possibility that something else was at work.

By the time he reached his sparse room, he’d run through a dozen or more explanations for her secret dislike. But it wasn’t until he sat on the sagging bed that he chanced to think of something else. His gaze had snagged on the latest report from the mill. It was doing well; all the systems he’d put in place before he’d left were performing just as they ought. And his replacement was exceptional.

Which meant he wouldn’t need to return, not as manager, not even as partial owner. It also meant that he had money to spare now. Perhaps he ought to think about getting a more permanent bed. If he wasn’t traveling back to York, then he should rent some rooms.

He paused, his breath quieting as he thought. And he waited. At first, he wasn’t sure exactly why, but as the silence stretched on, the knowledge came in a blinding flash of panic.

He was waiting for his madness to speak. A wry comment, a snide remark—his madness had always had something to say. From the time he was thirteen, the voice had always been with him. And yet now, his mind was frighteningly quiet.

“What the hell?” he said out loud, just to fill the void.

No answer. He heard the noise of the taproom downstairs, the scrape of a branch against the window, even the creek of his bed as he shifted uncomfortably on the sagging mattress. Not a peep from his madness.

He shot to his feet, his gaze roving the bedroom. He hadn’t a clue what he thought to find, but he scanned the place three times just in case. Then he closed his eyes and tried to grab his reason.

It was ridiculous to panic because his madness had left. Sanity was
not
something to fear. And yet, he’d had that extra voice in his head for nearly two decades. Why was it gone? What had happened?

He heard a raucous laugh from the taproom, and his hands suddenly itched to hold a pint. He was halfway to the door when he stopped himself. Drink would only fog his thoughts. He wanted clarity—a direction and a purpose. First, to erase the danger that haunted Irene. Second, to find a way to bring her into his arms. And third… he took a deep breath. Third, to accept that perhaps—just maybe—after nearly two decades of madness, perhaps, he had finally gone sane.

The idea terrified him, but he was a man, damn it. No longer a boy overwhelmed by his father’s excesses, frightened by the difficult future ahead, or exhausted by years of hard labor. He was a moneyed man now with a bright future: a title and a woman chosen to be his bride. He would not tremble like a leaf because he was sane.

He would not!

But as he curled up in his bed, his arms ached to hold Irene. His heart hammered in his breast, and he closed his eyes rather than feel them burn.

He didn’t think he’d be able to sleep. His body was too tense, his breath too choked. So he focused on Irene instead. First, the longing for her, then her reasons for casting him aside. He reviewed her words, and then finally, saw a pathway. She didn’t think she could become a countess. She believed he would not want her once he fully stepped into his role as Lord Crowle.

He would just have to prove her wrong. With balls and musicals and walks in Hyde Park, he would show her that she fit into his aristocratic life as easily as Mr. Grant once fit into her middle class existence.

With a plan in place, Grant was able to relax. His eyes drifted shut, and he dreamed of her.

***

Irene slept for two days. Well, she slept and cried. Her thoughts centered on Grant… er, Lord Crowle, four words echoing in her thoughts: he had abandoned her. Worse, she knew it was her own fault. She could have simply put him off after he proposed. Delayed for a time, knowing full well that he would eventually realize she was not the woman to be his countess. If she’d done that, then she could have spent the last two days in his arms.

But she hadn’t. She’d been forthright and honest, and now, she lay in bed, crying into her pillow while feeling sick to her stomach. What a sad sack she was, but she was powerless to overcome the lethargy that weighted her limbs. Even when her maid said he waited downstairs to see her, she’d steadfastly refused to rise. What point was there? The end was inevitable, so why belabor it?

So she’d remained in bed, sleeping most of the time, rising only when absolutely necessary, and returning to bed as quickly as possible.

Stalemate. Or limbo. She wasn’t sure which as she closed her eyes and drifted back into fitful sleep.

He stormed her bedroom just before noon on the third day. He knocked once—powerfully loud—then simply shoved open the door. She was sitting in bed, looking balefully at her breakfast tray. Nothing looked appealing, though she’d managed some tepid tea. Then suddenly, he was in her room, his hands on his hips as he glared at her.

“You are many things, Irene,” he said. Then he raised his fingers and ticked off his descriptions. “Beautiful, maddening, brilliant, but I never thought to call you a coward.”

“What?” she snapped, feeling her spirit rise for the first time since he’d left her three nights ago. Damn the traitorous thing.

He gestured angrily. “You’re hiding,” he said, his disgust plain. “I’ve spoken with your girl, Carol. Says she’s been downstairs eating tarts for two days. Says you’ve canceled your appointments and lain in bed. Your mama says you’re in a decline again and glares at me as if I caused it.”

Irene looked over his shoulder to where she saw her maid and Mama hovering anxiously in the hallway. She hadn’t thought to see them looking that way ever again. Not since she accepted Helaine’s job offer not quite a year ago. And yet, here she was again, hunching into her bed as if it was three years ago when she’d first learned of Nate’s death. The very idea made her shrivel in shame.

That was inside. Outside, she folded her arms and glared right back. “Did it ever occur to you that I had a fever? That I might be ill?”

His expression paled, but then he narrowed his eyes. “Has a doctor been summoned? Do you have a cough? A putrid throat? What hurts?”

She looked away. Mama had offered to get a doctor, but Irene had steadfastly refused. “Food tastes strange,” she said loudly.

“Then talk to your cook. Later. Right now, you have an appointment.”

She lifted her chin. “I do not. I canceled everything.”

“Un-cancel it.” Then his voice softened. Not in the way of compassion, but in the way of a man more dangerous when he whispered than when he shouted. “Or not. But I suggest you read this first.”

He pulled a letter out of his pocket and tossed it onto her lap. She looked down, seeing Helaine’s handwriting.

“It’s from Lady Redhill,” he said. “She told me what she wrote, so if you aren’t going to open it, I shall recite it. It says simply this: the shop needs a purchaser. If you are unable to perform such duties, then she needs to know immediately, so she can set about hiring a replacement.”

“She did not!” exclaimed Irene as she tore open the envelope. “She would never say anything so cruel!”

And indeed, reading the missive, she was right. Helaine had written solicitous questions about her health and ability to bear up at this difficult time. She said nothing about sacking her as a purchaser, though she did venture a question. It was simple and elegant, much like the woman herself. “If the current situation is too much of a strain,” she wrote, “perhaps we should think of hiring an assistant buyer for the time being.”

She had signed it, “With love, Helaine,” but Irene heard the message clearly, even if Grant hadn’t been underscoring it. Irene needed to perform her duties or release her job to someone else.

It was a logical perspective, but Irene couldn’t help but feel abandoned by her oldest friend. Meanwhile, she fussed with the edges of the pristine linen. “Why didn’t she come tell me this herself?” she asked the coverlet.

Lord Crowle answered. “I told her not to. She had appointments this morning at the shop, and I said I would deliver the letter. And that you would give her an answer this afternoon at your fitting.”

Her head jerked up. “Fitting? What fitting?”

“For the ballgowns you’ve ordered.”

“But I didn’t—”

“But you did!” inserted her mother-in-law from the door. Her voice was high and tentative, but the words were clear. “Don’t you remember? You said that you would attend the balls with me, but you needed more gowns. Wendy and Helaine know exactly the styles that suit you, and they already had your measurements.”

Irene twisted so she could shoot a baleful look at her mother-in-law. “You ordered them for me?”

“You seemed so busy.”

She hadn’t been busy. She’d been lying in bed. “I have been ill,” she said sullenly, speaking to herself. It was a lie, but one she wasn’t quite ready to release yet.

Meanwhile, Grant crossed to her bedside. He pulled up a chair quickly, his strong arms easily moving the heavy thing. Then he sat and possessed one of her hands. She didn’t want to give it to him, but the moment she felt his warmth stroke her skin, all her resistance melted. She let him hold her hand, and she relished the experience.

“Irene,” he said softly. “I have been here every day inquiring after you. I have been told that you were tired, that you were ill, that you were suffering all sorts of ailments.”

She blinked. He’d been here that often? Really? She hadn’t realized, and how silly was that? To mourn a man who had been here the whole time? She looked away, the pain cutting through her heart like a physical rip. It didn’t matter, she reminded herself. He couldn’t marry her. She couldn’t be a countess, not like he needed. So visit or not, nothing had changed.

Exhaling in frustration—and despondency—she flopped back against her pillows. “Just go away, Lord Crowle.” She made his title a curse. She hadn’t meant to, but it came out like that anyway.

He didn’t say anything for a time. Then he squeezed her hand. “Throw me over for your precious job if you must,” he said softly. “Don’t then forgo your job just because you’ve thrown me aside.”

“That’s not what I’m doing!” she said, the words all the more heated because it was a lie. “Damn it!” she threw his hand away, the curse at herself and her weakness. One man left her in death, the other because of his titled heritage. Neither was reason to lose herself in a decline, but here she was, undressed and unwashed for three days. “What is the matter with me?”

“Perhaps the same thing that has been the matter with me,” he offered quietly. “I cannot walk down the street without thinking of something I wish to say to you. I cannot search for our assailant without worrying if you are well. And I cannot close my eyes that I don’t ache for…” His voice trailed away, and she saw the hunger in his gaze

She closed her eyes, and without the distraction of tenderness in his expression, she was able to think of the words she needed to say. “I cannot lose another husband. It is too hard. I cannot give my heart and my hand to someone again. Not when society will be allied against us.
Again.
It is too hard.”

He exhaled a breath of understanding. “Everyone fought your wedding before. Said you were lowering yourself to marry a cit?”

“They said Papa
sold
me. Nate paid a bride-price. Did you know that? It was the only way I could get father to agree. He never knew that I was in love. Or, if he did, he didn’t care.”

Grant muttered a low curse. “Your father sounds like more of a cur than mine. And that’s saying something indeed.”

She flashed him a wan smile. He understood. He always did. It only took a sentence or two, and he understood everything she was feeling.

Then he suddenly exhaled and tapped the back of her hand with startling good cheer. “Well, you needn’t worry about that happening again, my dear. Marrying down to Nate, marrying up to me, it doesn’t matter. I have retracted my request. I no longer am offering you marriage.”

Gasps of outrage rang out from the doorway where Mama and the maid still hovered. But it was nothing less than the sound that escaped Irene’s lips as she stared at Grant’s smug face.

“That’s right,” he said firmly. “If simply asking for your hand has sent you into a decline, I retract it all. Now get up, get dressed, you have an appointment with your employer.”

“Two days is
not
a decline!” she snapped. “I felt ill!”

“And how do you feel now?”

She huffed out a breath, trying to decide how exactly she felt. Annoyed. Angry—at herself, as well as at him. And still a little nauseous, but that might be because she’d gone so long eating so little.

She grabbed a piece of toast off the tray and bit into it almost savagely. Then she chewed in sullen anger. She was a child. In truth, she was more childish than she’d ever been when she’d been little. Back then, her mother had been the one to sink into the doldrums—for days on end—leaving Irene to manage the daily tasks, or they would both starve. Just because she had people and money to serve her whims now was no reason to sink into the exact same weakness her mother had exhibited.

“I am stronger than that,” she said to the memory of her frail parent. Then she turned to shoot a glare at the man tormenting her. “Get out. I need to wash and dress. You may tell Helaine that I shall see her in an hour.”

He pushed to his feet, his expression maddeningly happy. “I shall send the message. Then I will wait downstairs with my watch in hand. We will see if you make your hour’s promise, or if I will come back up here to drag you out of your bath.” Then he waggled his eyebrows at her in a lascivious gesture. “Your choice.”

She shot him another glare in answer, but her belly quivered in delight. It could be fun for him to visit her bath, but that was not an option. Certainly not in her in-laws’ home. So she gestured with both hands, shooing him out.