The Inventor Page 5

  She turned her face upward to his, seeing for the first time how truly beautiful he was, the depth of color in his eyes and the sensual turn of his lips. Pulling him closer, she sought more, her mouth open and wet. He responded with a kiss, deep, hot and rough with passion. His hands closed around her waist, bringing her tight against his chest even as her quim shuddered around the pearl phallus still inside her.

  He felt hard and strong and wonderful, his hands caressing possessively down her bottom, slicking the moisture along her skin. He stroked her with his tongue, his fingers slipping between their bodies to tease the tight skin where the pearl phallus penetrated her, then roll tenderly over bright point of sensation buried in the folds before it.

  Her body clenched, a powerful new excitement stirring. She shut her eyes in panic, breaking the kiss before she was consumed by it. “No.”

  “Countess—”

  “No.”

  There was a moment of hesitation. “You’re frightened now?”

  She shook her head, unable to do more. She couldn’t want this man, couldn’t face the desire he coaxed out so expertly. The machine was safe. The man would never be. Not for her.

  Leda accepted his hand as she rose. His jeweled creation slid from her body, leaving an empty ache in its place. She didn’t look at him, didn’t acknowledge him as she climbed down from the machine and drew her dress up from the floor.

  “Who are you hiding from?” he asked.

  “Mr. Anderson, please . . .”

  “To hell with Mr. Anderson. My name is Ian, Countess. An’ you could do me the credit of looking at me just once, so I can see what harm I’ve done to you.”

  “Not harm, no harm.”

  “You’re shaking.”

  “The machine is perfect.”

  “I’m not talking about the machine.”

  “I can’t. You know I can’t.”

  “Can’t what? Allow a human to touch you?”

  “The machine is safe.”

  “Safe from what?”

  “Safe from this.” She struggled with her dress, with her heart, both tangled and hopeless in her hands. “From you, at least I thought, but I was foolish, foolish and stupid.”

  “I know what you wanted, Leda, and it was far from foolish, but I canna build a machine that feels like that. There is no machine that will hold you or love you thus. Only a mortal man might do that.”

  She grimaced, feeling a bright pain burn at the words. A mortal man. Another master, another judge, another opportunist. She blinked and looked away, her voice small when she spoke. “I understand.”

  “You understand?”

  “I can appreciate what a difficult position I’ve placed you in—”

  “I dunna think you’ve any idea what position you’ve placed me in.”

  “—this is beyond the scope of what’s possible . . . You, this, between us—it’s not what I had intended.”

  His expression hardened, his eyes growing cold and dull. “Of course. How could you have intended to allow such rough and filthy hands all over you? What kind of countess would you be, if you invited a lower class tradesman to your bed?”

  “That’s not what I meant. You’re hardly that.”

  “Aye, but my father was exactly that, as everyone knows.”

  “You’re a brilliant success, a famous scholar.”

  “Who worked on the docks as a boy, in the muck and rain and the bitter cold, until my fingers bled and my body couldna take any more. In such poverty, people die in the heart first. My father an’ sisters all went to their graves with prayers of thanks on their lips. I survived only because I was useful, because my talent was recognized by men eager to put it to use. And ‘ere I thought that I’d learned all the tricks, all the pitches and angles, and yet I dinna see this one coming. It took a woman of fine quality to find a new use for the genius Ian Anderson.”

  “I didn’t intend to use you.”

  “Didn’t you? Who thought up these machines that delighted you so, Countess? It is my work, my imagination that pleased you. You’ve asked me to seduce you by proxy, now you insist on keeping me at a safe distance, so that I’ll not spoil you with my vulgarity. As I said, I grew up on the docks with working men you’d cross the street to avoid, and whores more honest with the world than you’ve ever been.”

  The pain broke inside her and she slapped him. Her fingers clapped against the line of his jaw, then she balled her hands into fists and slammed at his chest in frustration. He released a curse through his teeth but did nothing to prevent or restrain her.

  She staggered back, unsteady in the intense heat. “How dare you? You think you’ve been used? For your superior intellect, no less. How tragic! I’ve been used for nothing, can’t you see that? For nothing! Nothing but an empty house, an empty name, a fortune that passes only misery from one generation to the next. How dare you, you who have loved so well and so often with your liberal artisans. You, who will never know what its like to devote your life to someone who thinks you are a stupid, worthless statue, to be owned by someone who hates you. Think of the revulsion he must have had making love to me those first few years, the sheer disgust it must have caused, the bitter jokes it inspired during card games and country retreats.”

  Ian flinched, this blow worse than any of the physical ones she had struck. His expression softened. “Leda, my girl. I—”

  “You’ve outdone yourself, Mr. Anderson. The device is miraculous.”

  “Don’t do this.” He tried to reach for her but she walked past him, smearing the tears from her cheeks in anger.

  “I’ll settle all accounts next week. I need no further service.”

  “I’m right here. Don’t pretend that you don’t see me, that you don’t know that I’m not your idiot of a husband or his card-playing friends. Face me and tell me the truth about what happened a few moments ago. I can understand being afraid, but I canna stand by and watch you shut me out, using his memory as an excuse.”

  Leda slid her cloak over her shoulders, pulling the heavy fabric tight against her collar. She raised her chin. “I don’t need an excuse, Ian.”

  He held her gaze, a glint of warning sharpening the blue of his eyes.

  Turning away from him, she opened the boiler room door and crossed the workshop without looking back.

  “Leda.” He was following her now.

  She quickened her pace, pausing breathlessly at the side exit, her fingers fumbling with the iron lock. It resisted her effort to unhinge it. She cursed in desperation and jammed it free, pushing out under a sheet of glittering rain.

  “Leda!”

  She broke into a run for her coach, grateful for the strong gale that drowned out the sound of his voice, the cold chill of water that washed her name into the darkness.

  Dire Consequences

  He charged out into the storm, only to see the horses of her carriage rearing forward, the driver’s whip cracking like lightning against the dark sky. The coach barreled down the path and Ian chased after it, the door almost within reach before the team picked up speed. The carriage pulled away from him, shuddering violently on its primitive suspension, the horses nearly at full gallop as they fought to reach the road.

  Swearing under his breath, Ian slowed his pace and let them go, watching as she disappeared in her bulky, gold-trimmed carriage. It was an awkward end to an argument that never should have happened.

  He swore, frigid rain pouring down between his naked shoulders. Wiping the water from his face, he shook his head and stalked back to the staircase, sinking into the empty glow of his shop.

  She’d been his for a moment, her hands trembling as she pulled him close, her breath warm on his tongue. He’d felt the woman in the height of her passion, vital and radiant, a silken butterfly released from a glass case.

  Just one moment of truth between them, just one, before she’d realized she was no longer in control, no longer the Countess directing her marionettes with purse strings. Aye, what a terrible barg
ain she’d made in him. He had no respect for the rules, no respect for the control she was so desperate to maintain, or the isolation her class demanded.

  Still, he regretted his harshness, the quick and hot-tempered things he’d said. He’d deserved the slap, the anger, but not the denial. She couldn’t pretend that this had never happened, couldn’t run back to her tower and imagine that he could not find her there.

  He was not the machine she’d bought, not some mechanical lover she could command without compromise, without having to feel anything ever again. No. He was the flesh and blood man she’d come to for help, and help her he would.

  He reached for a clean shirt, shrugging it over his shoulders with impatience and raking his fingers through his rain-slicked hair to set it in order. He pressed the intercom button on the wall.

  A buzz of noise traveled through the building’s old pipes, vibrating through floors and ceilings. The system’s speaker crackled to life with the grainy interpretation of an old man’s voice.

  “Yes sir?”

  “Have my horse brought around.”

  “The experiment?”

  “In danger of failure, we’ve no time to lose.”

  What was the use of crying? Leda squeezed the wet handkerchief in her fingers, cursing her own stupidity. She had no one else to blame for this. She had kissed him and made her desires plain. She had no defense for that, only the vivid memory of him standing before her with such purpose, his body strong and beautiful, the promise of deeper satisfaction warm in his eyes.

  In that moment, she’d have given anything to be one of those bohemian artisans of his, sensual, broody and fiercely tempered, who passed all the languid hours of the night in his arms, with no jewels but the diamonds shining from the heavens to compliment them.

  She found herself desperately wanting to know how he loved them. Not gently, not in the act of it. She had felt that much. His hands had sought her pleasure with insistence, his strength and expertise put to use without hesitation. He played the part of an academic and a humanist, but under her fingertips, he had burned and trembled like any raw thing, a heated and primal male that wanted to best and conquer and ride victorious until dawn.

  She couldn’t, couldn’t want this man.

  After all, Countess of Caithmore was not a bohemian artisan. She was a finely tailored illusion, a jeweled and painted work of art taught to incline her head just so, to flutter a silk fan and laugh at men’s jokes, especially when they were told at her expense.

  Even her accomplishments were not her own. The title she bore in her own right had been bequeathed, through generations, from a woman who had been made a queen and was later executed for her treasonous devotion to her faith, only to be canonized three hundred years after her death. It was a title that marked a vessel of royal blood, a living representative of the dead and a symbol of the glorious and bloodied history of a nation. She was not, and had never been, simply Leda.

  Not even her husband had called her that.

  “Ian.” She pressed her fingers to the cool glass of the carriage window, as if she could touch the reflection she imagined there. A proud and difficult man, a man she had commissioned to fortify her defenses and had broken though them instead. “I’m so sorry.”

  Her estate appeared through the darkness and rain, a shutter of light between wrought iron bars and massive gates. She clenched her teeth and pulled her fingers back from the glass, sick with the desire to be away from it, to never have to cross its green lawns or gilded hallways again.

  The carriage turned and rumbled up the drive, oblivious. Her heart sank. Lantern light played over the flowering bushes lining the path, the fresh smell of roses and rain flavoring the air as the carriage rattled its way home. The palace welcomed them with glossed steps and a glowing entrance, its great wings and hallways left dark.

  Leda pushed open the cabin door, refusing assistance as she charged up the steps and passed through the grand doors. Servants bowed and floated from her path, none daring to meet her gaze. The procession to her apartments included three maids carrying crystal candelabras and two footmen, the echoes of their movements whispering though rooms unseen.

  “Why are there no lights?” she asked.

  “Only the gas works.” Her maid looked back, her eyes wide with fear, as if this were a common reason for dismissal. “The new electrical system appears to be down with the storm.”

  “So much for progress.”

  A large fire blazed under the carved stone mantelpiece in her private apartment. The satin canopy of her bed danced with the rich glow of the flames, the windows beyond it frosted blue with moonlight.

  Her footmen brought more wood then disappeared. Her maids laid out fresh clothes and warm water and prepared the bed. They removed her wet cloak and stripped away her unlaced dress, silently noting her lack of proper skirts, her missing corset. She caught a quick exchange of glances in the bright face of the mirror.

  So be it. They could prove nothing. Whatever fantasies they imagined, whatever stories they hoped to sell to the press, their lies would have the usual meritless ring. None of them would ever know what happened with Ian. None of them would believe it.

  “I confess, I expected to find you at home.” A lilting male voice broke the silence behind her. “How little I know of my wife.”

  Leda saw him first in the mirror. He appeared from the shadows behind the bed, a tattered, phantom image of the man she had once married. His suit was torn and muddied, his dark hair clotted. His lofty features, normally so passive, were now pinched, the right side of his face swelled purple with bruises and dried blood, his eyes bright with mania.

  Leda stared at him in horror, unable to reply.

  “Where were you?” He raised his arm, squaring the barrel of a polished dueling pistol at her chest. The weapon trembled in his hand. “Where were you, Countess?”

  He wouldn’t shoot her. There was no reason to. It was not jealousy or hurt she saw in his eyes, only fear.

  She drew a difficult breath, reaching carefully to close the satin folds of her robe around herself. “Your departure was most egregious, your grace. You cannot deny me my consolation, whatever it may be.”

  “You have taken a lover?” He laughed under his breath, a rasping and hollow sound. “He must be a cold fish, some pedigreed corpse with a high tolerance for tediousness.”

  “I see you have not lost your appreciation for subtlety.”

  “I have some experience, when it comes to you.”

  “And more with others.”

  “You expected me to live a life of boredom?”

  She held his gaze, struggling to hide the hurt. “You seem to have avoided that, your grace. Are you going to kill me?”

  He blinked, his eyes flitting to the gun in confusion, as if he had forgotten that he held it. His lips parted, a wistful smile forming at the corners of his mouth. “Not yet. You see, you are my security.”

  “Your security?”

  “From them.”

  “The—”

  “Outside, watching us now.”

  She glanced at the windows. “You’re mad.”

  “No.”

  “Who do you think is out there?”

  “We’ll greet them, shall we?”

  He gestured that she should open the balcony doors. She backed away from him as he neared, her hand clasping onto the metal lever and releasing the latch. The glass doors swung loose on their hinges. A cool breeze swept into the room, heavy with the scent of rain and wet earth.

  “Out.” He jabbed the pistol toward the balcony.

  Leda obeyed, turning to face the stone balustrade. The gardens beyond it glowed with moonlight, storm clouds melting into the starlit sky. The trees dripped and glistened, the fountains sparkling in the distance.

  A shadow appeared from the hedges, taking shape as a tall man in a great coat and matching bowler. He crossed the distance with ease and paused under the balcony, his expression unreadable in the scarce light.
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  “Inadvisable, your lordship.”

  “Fenton, you prick. Get me a carriage. If anyone follows us, she’ll suffer and you will take the blame.”

  The man in the bowler sighed. “We can’t let you leave.”

  “The hell you can’t.”

  “How far do you think you’d get, in any case? We’re not the only ones you’ve disappointed lately.”

  “Spare me your warnings.”

  “Where are the documents, your grace?”

  The Earl laughed, desperate and furious. “If anything happens to me, you’ll never find them.”

  “Not helpful.”

  “The devil with you.” The Earl grabbed Leda at the back of the neck, the clamp of his fingers hard and painful. She cried out as he thrust her forward against the balustrade and pressed the pistol against her temple. The metal chilled her skin.

  “No need for that,” Fenton said.

  “Get me a carriage, or her blood will be on your hands.”

  “That’d be a shame, wouldn’t it? Simply tell me where the documents are and we’ll start making arrangements.”

  “You think I’m a fool?”

  “I’m the wrong person to ask, your grace.”

  “Nothing but a security buffoon.”

  “Or a man too well acquainted with the facts. You’ve stolen sensitive military information with the intention of selling it to our good friends on the Southern Front, then attempted to disguise your crimes by leaving your wife, the King’s dear cousin, for an actress who has since been arrested for being a foreign spy. Such actions were not inspired by brilliance, I’ll wager.”

  “You want your documents back? Get me a carriage, you idiot!”

  Fenton stood immobile, a man considering a distasteful problem. Leda could feel his eyes on her, measuring her value, calculating the weight of what he was willing to risk.

  He inclined his head. “Very well, your grace. We’ll have a carriage prepared and brought ’round for you. It may take a few moments and I warn you that no harm should come to the Countess in the meantime. If I have to explain so much as a bruise to the King, I guarantee your head will end up on a pike. Many Earls have so decorated the river’s edge, haven’t they?”