Lady Meets Her Match (18 page)

Hadn't Nate done that? Trusted her with the truth of his St. Giles thievery? His past
failings
? And in doing so, endeared himself to Miss Mayhew all the more.

Cyrus's arms hung limp at his sides. This knowledge knocked him down a peg, floored him as good as the Swede had.

* * *

What was she going to do about this unrelenting attraction to Mr. Cyrus Ryland?

She was still warm from cleaning him up, touching him. Cyrus's large, masculine frame set her pulse thrumming, a fact she could not push away no matter how hard she tried.

Until tonight, a man's chest was not a thing of beauty, but seeing him stripped down and half-naked captivated her. She wished to discover each sizable curve and angle. His legs were bared below his breeches, and the bristly hairs on his large, tapered calves begged for exploration.

And
he
wanted
her.

Claire turned around, her movements stiff and mechanical. Her body twined with unexpected tightness, a craving sensation pooling low in her abdomen. She bumped Cyrus awkwardly when she slipped her hand through the crook of his elbow. She leaned close, his strength her bellwether.

“Please, would you take me home?”

She now possessed the coinage to live well and could safely ignore the advice to get married for security's sake.

“I'd be happy to give you a safe escort home.” Cyrus extended his open hand, gesturing to her flush coin bag. “Will you allow me to carry that for you?”

She set the leather pouch in his hand, the trust coming easy. They moved out of the warehouse, her limbs taut with vexing need. Her stalwart protector didn't say anything. He was solicitous of her but quiet. She glanced sideways at his taciturn profile, unmarred save the egg-sized, maroon bruise swelling on his face. The gash high on his cheekbone already clotted dark red. He looked to heal quickly from his wounds. Was he like this with other pains in life?

Her gallant hero inadvertently saved her tonight by taking an unwanted fall.

Claire kept her vision on the ground. What Nate did tonight would not be listed as a crime in Bow Street's
Gazette
, but stealing a look at the stone-cut profile beside her, a spirit of wrongness hung heavy. She was complicit in the evening's doings, however unintentional.

And the belief
no
one
will
get
hurt
turned stale among other notions wrestling inside her.

She stole something from Cyrus Ryland again, though she couldn't put a name to her transgression.

His shoulders squared in that implacable way of his, but his mouth pressed in a taut line. He stared straight ahead, fixed on some unseen point. Was this turn in him because she disrupted the fight, causing him to lose? Somehow the explanation didn't sit right.

They came to the warehouse door. Clouds swirled wraithlike everywhere. Her pattens walked on the smooth surface of Billingsgate's flat cobbles, but she couldn't see the ground below or the sky above. Across the way, the ships were gone, swallowed in a ghostly fog.

Heaven had fallen to earth.

The Ryland carriage sat directly in front of them at the ready, a great black beast on wheels. Candle lanterns hung from the carriage, their light haloing in the mist.

“Sir, fog's worse than an ol' buttermilk sky.” The coachman approached, holding a lantern high over his tricorne. “I'll have the footmen lead the horses, but it'll be slow goin'.”

“Do whatever is safest,” Cyrus said. “We stop first by way of the New Union Coffeehouse on Cornhill to see Miss Mayhew home.”

Cyrus gave her a lift up into the carriage and she settled on the seat, grateful for the luxury of a ride home. Before Cyrus found his seat, the attendant's outside light bounced off hundreds of dazzling brass tacks. The burnished points pinned the cushioned leather squab into place, a rich sight to behold. Then the door was shut, and all went dark. Claire touched the cold glass window.

“Odd night,” she said, shivering.

“You'll need this.” Cyrus set a woolen carriage blanket on her legs, his hand bumping her knee with impersonal delivery.

He knocked twice on the roof, and the carriage lumbered forward. She spread the heavy wool over her legs, her vision adjusting to the dark. Cyrus made a hulking shape on the opposite seat, and if she dare let her imagination run wild, she'd say he brooded.

This was an angry kind of melancholy, not the sullen variety. He was one to sit or stand square shouldered and strong, but this man facing her mulled something of considerable weight.

What was troubling him?

Cyrus pulled his coat closed, his shirt's spare bit of white showing in the dark.

“Mr. Ryland, don't you have a carriage blanket to keep you warm?”

“You've got the only one. The coachman wasn't expecting two riders tonight.” His voice was cool to her.

“I'd be pleased to share.” She folded back a corner of the wool and patted the seat beside her with invitation. “It's unsafe for you to be uncovered after your evening's exertions.”

And
I
find
I
want
you
next
to
me
.

His shoes scraped the floor, and the well-sprung carriage bounced a little from the shift in weight. His arm brushed her, but Cyrus pulled away when she arranged the blanket over them. He sat beside her, his legs opened wide and comfortable under the blanket. Though close in body, he could've been a hundred miles away.

She stared at him under her lashes, the caution unnecessary with the dim interior. The carriage progressed with painstaking slowness over Billingsgate's cobbles, and he sat, arms folded loosely across his chest, his head tipped back against the high, flat squab behind him.

Outside, the coachman and the footmen called instructions back and forth, but inside, silence reigned. She squirmed on the leather seat, her hands fidgeting with the wool.

“Is the seat not to your liking, Miss Mayhew?”

Cyrus's stony profile was a stark line in darkness.

“The seat is fine, but I think the carriage is chillier inside than out, Mr. Ryland.”

His head tilted toward her slowly. She caught a glimpse of his quicksilver eyes. The black silhouette of his head and shoulders loomed, expanding and contracting with each breath.

“I won't insult you by making flimsy excuses or denials,” he replied. “But this is none of your concern.”

He deserved some credit for not denying the strain that seemed to come right after Nate placed the fat purse in her hands.

In the ring, he was a force to behold, but in the dark, Cyrus made another kind of dangerous predator of which she was unsure would pounce or slumber. Either image should cause the wise woman to sit under a mantle of caution.

But what about tonight was wise or cautious?

“Pray tell why not?” Her voice dropped softly. “I make a fine ear for the man who wants to unburden his soul, you know. A certain man once asked me if listening to men was a particular talent of mine.”

His teeth gleamed in the dark.

“A very perceptive man, I'm sure.” The smile disappeared. “But no.”

His head rested on the squab again, and she shifted nearer. Their legs touched. Cyrus allowed the contact, not moving away from her. His breath moved with steady rhythm, expanding and contracting as though he would seek sleep.

In the whole give-and-take of previous conversations, she couldn't imagine him closing down like this. Nor could she ascribe his silence entirely to exhaustion, though his body must have been wracked from his exertions. The picture of a man quietly licking unseen wounds came to mind, and something vital inside her needed to reach him.

Her fingertips grazed his sleeve. “Please.”

His head rolled to face her again, an outside lantern swayed, the light painting his enticing, granite-cut mouth in pale shades.

“Why am I not surprised you won't take no for an answer.” His words were rife with intimate notes. “Or are you finding my attentions more to your liking?”

A little shiver touched her. His low, Midlander's accent played sweet music to her body's senses, even her nipples rejoiced at his sensual tone.

“I seem to be rethinking many things of late, but there is something I've wanted to say.”

He didn't move.

“You gave me the best surprise with the strawberries. Thank you.” She paused, searching the darkness. “For the thoughtful nature of your gift.”

He relaxed under her hand.

“Despite certain of my intentions, Miss Mayhew, I do wish you well. Imagining your delight at the fruit pleased me.”

“And you're not angry with me about tonight's ill-gotten gains?”

He rubbed his neck, his laugh low. “Aside from the fact that you were an unknowing participant? Don't worry, I'd be the last to find fault with your actions.”

Something distant and aggrieved haunted his last words. What was this place he guarded in the shadows?

“Good, because I'd hate to be in your debt for another trespass.” She tried for lightness, but he shut his eyes again, locking himself away in a private place.

Tenderness welled up, fresh as the sunrise, for this man protecting something deeply hidden. Her stalwart hero rubbed his nape, stretching his head as though the muscles bothered him there the most. Then, either despondent or tired, he let his hand drop to his lap. His heat and strength called to her as did his shirt open at the neck, the white cloth teasing her.

Cyrus needed touching.

She licked her lips and opened her mouth wider for needful air. At her age, ought she be more experienced? Sitting here, ogling a man in the dark, she felt foolish and young, not at all a woman of twenty-six. What happened to the brave woman she was at the masked ball?

The truth was she'd acted fearless that night because she'd been masked and unknown. Now, the awful specter of rejection hung over her, yet she was the one who turned away from Cyrus's advances, repeatedly rejecting him.

Did anything shake his confidence?

Juliette would know what to do.

She winced at the notion of her friend, or any other well-practiced flirt, sitting in her place. Such women would act with smooth adroitness here in the dark. She was short on experience.

And there was only one way to change that.

She reached for his coat sleeve, finding finely woven wool and a well-hewn man underneath. She slid her open hand up his forearm, his warmth and solidness unmoving. Her palm explored the hills and meadows of iron-hard muscles, lingering on one large curve high on his arm. She pressed harder on his shoulder, not wanting to miss any part of him that had been bared to her less than an hour ago.

Her breath was labored, a rhythmic strain in the silence. Her hand reached his nape as much in want of his naked skin as to give the only curative she knew for an aching neck.

Would he push her away?

Cyrus sat with eyes closed, his body rooted in place, but the air whispered of new intimacy.

Was there more pleasure in giving than receiving?

Her fingers worked their magic on his aches, loosening him. Cyrus's breath moved with the ebb and flow of a relaxed man, his resistance faltering under her care. The skin under her fingers was still fiery at his hairline from the fight. His thick, silk-wrapped queue rubbed the back of her hand, all while his head lolled against the squab.

“Did you plan to loosen my tongue under your skilled hand?”

“I want to touch you,” she murmured. “Please don't tell me to stop.”

His breath hitched. “I can't think of a single man who'd ask you to.”

“No other man has my interest, Mr. Ryland. Only you.”

His hard features softened, and her heart melted at the affection she witnessed. He smelled of wool and wood, and something else that called to her—a masculine solidness, the kind a woman could count on no matter what.

They sat in a sphere of quiet, save the sound of their breathing and the carriage's creaks and sways. Outside, the coachman yelled his encouragement to the steeds moving them forward. The whole carriage cocooned them in a peculiar world with the heaven's wool-thick mists pressing against the windows.

Her hand didn't stop rubbing his neck, but she shifted her leg, bending her knee to rest her leg on his thigh. Her patten slipped off, dropping to the floor with a thud.

Cyrus's head moved off the squab. “Are you undressing for my benefit?”

His smile's wicked curve played on her. From her stays to her drawers, everything was too tight, too much against her skin. Cyrus reached for her hand working his neck muscles. He brought it to his lips and kissed her knuckles thrice with slow adoration.

“We don't have to stop,” she said, her voice breathy and quick. “I'm sure you have more aches and pains.”

Mid-kiss, he smiled against the back of her hand, his warm breath brushing her skin.

“There are so many ways a man could go with that.” Humor lightened his voice. “But I'm sure you mean to provide tender care to my neck only.”

She grinned at her unintended innuendo. This was the experience she craved—to flirt and tease, to kiss and touch. Cyrus put his lips to her wrist, marking her with hot kisses. A spangle of pleasure shot up her arm.

“You would break down the meanest soul with your soft heart.” He set her hand on the blanket's scratchy folds, his thumb caressing her wrist.

“High praise, indeed, sir.”

Tinseled sparks danced across her skin, not letting her recover from those gentle touches, his lips to her arm. He stroked a lone finger on her hand that rested between them.

“And you don't care one bit that I'm the son of a Midlands swine farmer, do you?”

Cyrus asked the unexpected question, but his voice conveyed confidence in her answer. Was her chivalrous brawler showing a hidden spot? She peered at him, wanting a better view of his shadowed features. How was she to decipher this latest turn?