Never Kiss a Rake (24 page)

She opened the book again, steeling herself to look down at the drawings. There was text as well, in old Italian, and she suspected the book
was both old and valuable. Perhaps people didn’t do such things anymore. Perhaps this was aberrant behavior practiced by Italians, or members of some cult.

She closed it again, scrambled off the bed, and shoved the book underneath the mattress, blowing out the lamp before climbing back under the covers. If Kilmartyn could sleep on it so could she. Tomorrow she would burn the wretched thing.

Five minutes later she sat up, lit the lamp, and pulled out the book once more. The oddest thing about the drawings was how happy everyone appeared to be. The women who were being pleasured most outrageously were laughing in delight, the men equally pleased with the world. She didn’t equate copulation with such open joy. Carefully she began to read through the book again, distracting herself by translating until she began to understand what the words were saying. She almost slammed the book closed again, but she steadied herself, studying each page with care. In fact, now that her initial shock had faded, it seemed more like some wicked chapbook, with careful instructions for degrees of intimacy if her limited grasp of Italian served her. She stopped at the strangest engraving of all. A man was standing by an open window, his breeches unfastened, and a woman knelt in front of him. All she could see was the back of the female’s head, but she had a strong suspicion about what that woman was doing. And indeed, when she turned the next page the view was from a different angle, and the activity was far too clear.

Bryony told herself she should feel horror, disgust, shock. Instead she stared at the drawing for long moments, wondering what would cause a woman to do such a strange thing. Wondering what it would taste like. Feel like. Wondering why she felt heat begin to pool low inside her.

She shoved the book away again. Nanny Gruen would tell her it ought to be burned, but even Bryony, despite her innocence, knew better. The sketches had been done by a master’s hand, and the sheer inventiveness and joy in the pages should never be obliterated. Kept out of sight of innocents, of course, but it really was the most extraordinary document.

She lay still in her bed, fighting her curiosity. Her long thick hair was still damp, and she shivered slightly in the cool night air. She needed to sleep. She’d worked abominably hard today, tomorrow would bring new challenges, and she was exhausted.

She lay on her back, and yet the covers seemed to caress her body, including the fine lawn nightdress she’d brought with her. It was almost as if there’d been some sort of magic elixir in the bathwater that had made her skin sensitive to the feel of everything. Perhaps her father had been correct about the dangers of excessive bathing.

Or perhaps he’d known nothing at all. It wasn’t the hot water caressing her skin, the scent of lavender from the fine-milled soap that had roused such a strange reaction in her body. It was the book hidden beneath her bed, the drawings. The suggestions of possibilities that seemed to have slid beneath her skin like some wicked itch.

She suddenly realized her hand had drifted to her stomach, and she pulled it away, shocked at herself. Women didn’t touch themselves. Pleasure themselves. Unless, of course, they were the women in the sketches, who seemed just as happy using their own hands or cylindrical objects provided by their partners.

She sat up. Her skin was on fire, the secret place between her legs felt heavy, aching. She needed to think of something else, something to wipe the erotic images from her brain.

The answer was clear, obvious, and unacceptable. She could think about what happened in the room two flights beneath her. The struggle, the blood, the death she didn’t want to believe had happened. Or she could think of the men in the book, the clever hands touching places no gentleman should touch, the body parts that were much larger than seemed possible, and slumberous pleasure on the women’s classic faces.

She lay back down again. She could think of it in scholarly terms. Artistic ones. She had a certain talent with brush and ink, but the delineation of muscle, the smoothness of flank, the delicacy of expression clearly showed the hand of a master. What artist had spent such time crafting naughty drawings? And had he experienced everything he’d
drawn? She suspected he had, and more than once, if he’d been able to capture it so faithfully, and then she realized her hand was stroking her pebbled breast and she yanked it away again, keeping her arms rigidly by her side.

She couldn’t think about those drawings, not with the peculiar effect they were having on her own flesh. And she wouldn’t think of Lady Kilmartyn’s devastated room and whatever disaster she had covered up.

She could think of Renwick, its vast, sprawling lands, the house that went back to the time of Good Queen Bess, the dairies and honey house and gardens, all tended with loving care. But the longing that had always suffused her seemed muted now. Renwick was in the past, no longer hers to watch over. This was her home now, as disordered as it was.

Was it feminine nature, to claim wherever one lived as home? Was it normal to cleave to the new household, dismissing the old? Or was there something else about this place that drew her? Not just the mysteries, the questions, the unproven hints of violence. Why did this suddenly feel as if this was where she belonged?

She knew the answer, of course. Knew it, and refused to think about or dissect it. Adrian Bruton, fourth Earl of Kilmartyn, degenerate, sensualist, rake, and reprobate, had as powerful an attraction for her as the wicked drawings beneath her bed. No matter what crimes she thought him capable of, she was still drawn to him in a way no Christian woman ought to be. And as she let sleep claim her, her drifting mind saw herself on her knees in front of him, the taste and size of him in her mouth, the delight on her face with her half-closed eyes.

It had been a hell of a day,
Adrian thought as he stumbled through the darkened hallways of his town house. There was no one waiting up for him this time—little wonder, since his footman had been sound asleep when he’d come in the night before.

Of course, that hadn’t been an accident. Bertie wasn’t the brightest of lads but he was usually reliable. He expected someone had drugged the boy.

He hadn’t even thought more about it, heading up to bed until he’d woken up with the delightful surprise of Bryony rummaging underneath his mattress. Hadn’t thought of anything at all until he’d been sitting at his desk, thinking of his housekeeper, Russell’s daughter, and he’d finally decided he’d had enough of his blackmailing harridan of a wife.

If he was going to be tried for treason so be it. He’d be gone before they put him in the dock—he had enough money to disappear. He had little reason to trust the British government, and he’d done his best to find peaceful ways to change the current iron control of Ireland since the debacle of the first Fenian Outrage. If he had to leave he would, and never look back.

But he was damned if he was going to spend one more day married to a woman who paraded her lovers in front of him and toyed with him when she grew bored. Those damnably few moments with the sweetly delectable Bryony in his bed had done something to him. Changed him in some immutable way.

He hadn’t thought the world could get much darker, but it had. It was pure luck that he’d found the blood-soaked clothes,
his
clothes, before his unwanted but acceptable valet did. He had little doubt that violence had been done in his house, and that his despised wife was dead. And someone was trying to make certain he was the one who’d be blamed for it.

He’d had no idea he had such a powerful enemy. Or maybe it was simply Cecily who had enemies, and whoever had killed her needed a scapegoat.

He should feel grief. Feel
something
. But instead he simply felt dazed, empty of everything, even relief. The only thing he could concentrate on was trying to figure out who was his enemy? Who would want Cecily dead? Who would want him dead as well, because surely he’d hang for it if they convicted him. Being a lord would do nothing to help him.

He was nobody’s scapegoat. The clothes were hidden at the back of his cupboard, where even the inquisitive Collins wouldn’t find them, and he’d deal with them later.

Cecily’s rooms, at first glance, had looked normal, despite the stench of spilled perfume. And then he recognized the coppery tang of spilled blood beneath the thick, flowery scent, and on closer inspection he’d seen signs of a struggle. Someone had cleaned up after whatever violence had been done to her, though he couldn’t imagine whom.

Yes, he could. Bryony could have done it, though he wasn’t certain why she’d bother. If she’d called the police it wouldn’t take long before she’d be exposed, but if she truly believed he was responsible for her father’s death he would have thought that would be exactly what she wanted.

And yet everything had been wiped clean. He was half-tempted to find his way back into those rooms, see if he could discover any sign left behind of what had happened, but something stopped him. If he was going anywhere he was going up to the servants’ quarters to see what the proper Miss Russell thought of his erotic engravings, and he couldn’t do that. Not given who she was. She was now officially off-limits.

Or was she? She’d destroyed her reputation by moving into his household. If word got out she’d never marry, never be able to hold her head up. But she’d said she had no intention of marrying, and she’d never been in society before—she would hardly start now, after her father’s disgrace. So who would know or care if he partook of such a tempting morsel?

She’d know. Bryony, for all her stern behavior, had a fragile heart beneath everything. She’d deny it as strongly as she’d deny who she was, but he knew women. He could scarcely seduce and then discard her like a demimondaine.

And he’d know. He didn’t have much of a conscience left, but what remained seemed to belong to Bryony.

He reached his temporary bedroom in the darkness, not bothering with the gaslight or even a candle. Collins was nowhere around, thank God. He stripped off his cravat and coat, undid his waistcoat and dropped it on the floor. He was bone-tired, and he didn’t want to think about blood or death or sex or anything pleasant or unpleasant. He just wanted to sleep.

He heard the footsteps, and cursed his damnably acute hearing. Someone was descending the servants’ stairs, too near his room, and he recognized the sound. Bryony Russell was heading downstairs, and there was the excellent chance he’d catch her just as she was rummaging through his desk.

That would be more than interesting. With a sigh he rose from his bed and moved into the darkened hallway.

The crash had woken her up. At least, she thought it was a crash—in the suddenness of her nighttime awakening she couldn’t be sure it was anything more than a bad dream. She heard it again, a muffled noise, and she sat up, reaching for her wrapper. It hadn’t come from directly beneath the servants’ floor, which should rule out Kilmartyn trying to find his drunken way to his new bedroom.

She slipped from the covers, her bare feet silent on the plain wood floor. She ought to go wake up one of the men. She moved to the cupboard and reached for her apron, and then pulled her hand back. She didn’t have her keys, and the door between the attics that housed the male and female servants was stoutly locked. There was no way she could rouse any of the men.

She could see a light coming from the gap under her door, and she froze. Whoever was approaching was silent, ominously so, and for a moment she was tempted to try to shove the wardrobe in front of the door to keep out whatever monster lurked there. And then she stiffened her back. There was no way she was going to cower in her room, leaving the other women to the mercy of whoever was roaming the house. She pulled open the door before she could think better of it, and both she and Emma shrieked in unison.

“Hush!” Bryony said firmly, as if she hadn’t been equally loud. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, Mrs. Greaves, we heard the most dreadful noise coming from downstairs, and we thought you ought to know about it.”