Beauty and the Duke (22 page)

“I will finish, Annie,” Christine told the girl.

“Yes, your grace.” Annie hurried from the room.

Erik remained in the doorway. Aware of his eyes on her, aware of the race of her heart, Christine knelt and finished shelving the books Annie had dropped.

“I have business to attend in Dunfermline,” he said after a moment. “I will be leaving in the morning. I may be gone a week or longer.”

She absently brushed the dust from her hands and raised her eyes. “I see.” She rose.

“I have issued orders that you are to be given whatever you ask for as needed,” he said. “You have only to make your wishes known.”

They faced each other across what used to be an old torture chamber. As his gaze touched the manacles and chains on the walls, the irony of it must have struck him as well, for when his eyes returned to hers, she glimpsed amusement in their darkened depths.

“Is this where you intend to set up your laboratory then?”

Lamplight glowed in the semi-darkness and cast shadows on the walls barren of any amenities. Her gaze followed his hands to the table beside the door as he lifted the tablet containing her renditions of the beast she’d visualized finding. One looked forged in the fires of hell with its thick lizard-like skin, long snout, and teeth large enough to tear a man asunder.
He flipped through each page in the tablet, his expression revealing nothing of his thoughts. His hand moved to her drawing case and opened the mahogany lid, his fingers touching those possessions that gave her life meaning, much as she had done to his things in the library.

“What happens if you do not find your beast, Christine?”

“What happens if I cannot give you a son?”

The silence between them was not so much uncomfortable as it was revealing. Neither of them knew how to answer that question.

“I suppose we can seek an annulment and you can buy yourself another bride,” she offered.

“I have found that there is little my wealth cannot buy, Christine. People hate me for it, but no one has yet to turn it away.”

Since Christine fit into that category, the arrow hit where he must have meant it to go for he watched her flinch. But it was not satisfaction she glimpsed in his eyes as he returned to his restless meandering.

“You did not come down here to engage in some sparkling repartee with me. Why are you suddenly on your way to Dunfermline?”

“I had a visit from the constable this afternoon. I intend to be in front of the bench tomorrow to see the matter of Elizabeth’s disappearance put to rest.”

He told her about the constable’s visit and about the letter his former wife’s family had received and various “sightings” people had made of Elizabeth.

What Erik did not tell her was that he could not be married to two women, but he did not need to. His very silence on the matter told her.

“But if the coroner’s inquest concluded their investigation in May and issued her death certificate before
you went to London, how can a magistrate reopen the case? The Lord Advocate must think Elizabeth could still be alive.”

“The Lord Advocate is Robert Maxwell’s brother.”

“Robert Maxwell? Elizabeth’s father? Why would he reopen the case?”

“Lord Eyre believes she is alive and he is attempting to invalidate our marriage. Maxwell inherits the Sedgwick duchy if I die without an heir. The letter is a hoax, Christine.”

“Have you considered that the culprit perpetuating this hoax is playing into the Sedgwick curse? For seven years, you could not remarry. Seven years from Elizabeth’s disappearance puts you at your thirty-fourth birthday. Who does not think you will implode and expire before the end of summer?”

Shaking his head, he suddenly crooked his mouth. “I haven’t heard the matter of my imminent demise put in quite those terms.”

“It isn’t amusing.”

“It is the only thing in this sordid affair about which I am capable of laughing. Allow me to savor the moment. But I agree with you.”

Christine’s fingers wrapped around his upper arm. “The bones you found could belong to someone else. You’ve said yourself, other people have gone missing. What if Elizabeth still
is
alive?”

“Then you must consider me a dissolute rake who would think nothing of robbing us both of our self-respect. Not even taking into account what such an action would do to my family. I would not have wed you had I a doubt. The remains are Elizabeth’s. Do not ask me how I can know for sure. I just do.” He leaned his backside against the workbench and folded his arms. “I just wanted answers, Christine. Closure. One day Erin is
going to ask. I don’t want her to believe her da is a murderer.”

“What happened in the keep tower, Erik?”

He stared at her, but her question was neither a demand nor a desire to pass judgment. Then suddenly he shook his head. His chest rose and fell. He leaned with his palms pressed against the workbench. “Many years ago I decided that I had a great, big castle with many empty rooms to fill. I was young and possessed with a sense of my own importance. I wanted a beautiful wife and children to fill my life. As you can see, acquiring such a paragon has not been a particular skill of mine. I have discovered myself better suited to business than dealing with the women in my life.”

He lifted a paperweight beside his hand, a mosquito encased in amber. “You asked once if I was in love with Elizabeth. At the time, I believed I was.

“I married her two years after Charlotte’s death. I might have wed her sister, Lara, had Elizabeth not come back that summer from France. The last time I had seen her she’d been in short dresses. She was beautiful and filled with this…this spark for life. Her father married her to me because I had wealth and a title and because our two families were as close as two families with shared pasts could be. She did not want to wed me. And I regretted every day afterward.

“I rebuilt the tower keep and wanted to live there with her. I had never done anything with my hands and discovered a particular aptitude. When it was finished, she hated the place. She despised anything I loved, including Erin, who was born almost nine months to the day we spoke our vows. She became worse after Erin was born. Elizabeth was adept at hiding that side of herself from everyone but me.

“And so after a rather nasty argument where she ac
cused me of adultery with her sister, she went up to the tower and destroyed everything I had built. My work. My books. My designs. My life.”

“What happened after that?”

“In the end, she walked out of the keep and perished. I am convinced the only reason Erin is still alive is because I took her with me when I left. Lara later found me in Italy and told me Elizabeth had been missing since the night I left. When Erin and I returned, many assumed Elizabeth’s accusations of adultery were true and looked at me for her disappearance. I hired anyone with the skill to follow a cold trail to try to find her. Only after that proved futile did I file a deposition with the burgh constable in St. Andrews asking for help. By then almost a year had passed. Now six years and some months after she vanished, her remains begin to wash up on the riverbank about two miles away from the castle. Along with those of the beast.” His mouth crooked. “It does not seem fair that your beast has to share its legacy with my tragedy.”

“It does not seem right that your tragedy should give rise to my legacy.”

He had somehow restructured the boundary between them. She could no longer remember any of the reasons why she’d been so angry with him. “You confuse me, Erik.” She wiped her nose on her sleeve.

“Good God, Christine.” Not nearly appalled as he sounded, he whipped out a handkerchief from inside his jacket. “Whoever taught you to wipe your nose on your sleeve?”

She snatched the handkerchief from his hand. “Heaven forbid that I ever learn to cry like a proper lady.” She blew her nose and glared up at him with determined, watery eyes. Then did something she had never done before.

She stepped into his arms. Not because he so obviously needed comforting—though clearly, he would never ask—but because she did, and his arms made her feel safe. She remained there without speaking or daring to breathe for fear of breaking the spell between them. Somewhere behind her, the glass-dome clock ticked away the seconds and resonated like the beat of his heart against her cheek, as if telling her she could not remain in Erik’s arms forever. “Thank you for sharing your secrets,” she said.

“I have never told another soul what I told you,” he said. “Hell, I do not know why I told
you
, except I owe you some manner of explanation.”

“You are kind to think so.”

His chuckle bordered on satire. “I told you once before I never do anything out of kindness. I have my reasons for everything I do.”

A tightness squeezed her chest. She pulled away. “Why do you behave as if you do not care what I think about you? What anyone thinks of you.”

“Then allow me to recuse myself from any further comment on the topic of my confession, madam,” he quietly said, his eyes touching hers, “for fear it will prejudice you more against my character.”

“You
fear
too much, Erik. It is too easy to hide behind fear and guilt.”

Cognizant of the heavy thudding of her heart as he laid a knuckle against her jaw and tilted her face, she tried to look away. But he would not allow her. “And what do you fear,
leannanan
? Where do you hide?”

There was heat in his eyes when they met hers. He tucked a wisp of her hair behind her ears. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

He picked up the C. A. Sommers book he’d been
fondling earlier. “Behind your father’s work perhaps? Or should I say,
your
work? Christina Alana Sommers?”

Tears filled her eyes all over again as she looked away. How could he know she was C. A. Sommers?

“He let me read your manuscripts. Your voice is all over that book.”

She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“Your father and I were in contact for a year before he passed away. I got to know you again through him. But I did not know for sure you were C. A. Sommers until you told me about his dragon. That theory had never been your father’s. But yours. He is the one who went out on the proverbial limb for you.”

“And paid for it with his professional reputation and his health.” She pressed her nose into his shirt and sniffled again. “When you came that day to the school with the tooth, it was like a miracle.”

“I don’t want to be the one responsible for crushing your dream. Go find your beast, Christine.”

And it was as if time had momentarily stopped and encapsulated them within its warm embrace. As if life had breathed springtime into her heart.

As if all her questions were suddenly answered.

If only all the answers were simple.

Her palms lay abreast of his thudding heart. “I don’t want to lose you.”

She felt the tremor that went through him, as if he read her thoughts in her silence. His fractured breath caressed her lips. Reaching his hand behind her nape, he drew her against him. “Know this now, my love. No matter what the future may bring, I consider you mine in every way. And our bargain has yet to be met.”

He lowered his mouth to hers. She was conscious of
the primal need to have him even as she knew much remained unsettled between them, yet, knowing at least in this, tonight they were partners in every way. The fingers that splayed his chest, closed into a fist that gripped his shirt. No longer content just to touch him, she deepened the kiss. A slow, guttural moan escaped him, and her world spun as he pushed his tongue deep, tasted, and finally sipped.

Slowly, he raised his head, focused on her lips, then looked into her eyes. She inhaled the scent of rain that dampened his clothing and his hair, and tasted him in his senses. Her name on his lips, he explored the contour of her cheeks with his palms, the softness of her skin with his fingertips. There was heat in his touch. Heat in his body pressed to hers and in the hands that framed her face and, for a moment, as he traced his thumbs along the outline of her lips, she believed that she, who believed in dragons, truly feared nothing.

Threading his fingers into the thick mass of her hair, he loosened the scarf until it drifted to the floor in a streamer of blood-red silk. “Look at me,” he said.

She did as he bid, lifting her lashes slowly to peer into his eyes. She had expected them to be hooded, his thoughts hidden. Neither was the case. “I need this to be your choice. I cannot guarantee the future,” he said.

“Then I will guarantee it for us,” she whispered against his lips.

Her hands were already sliding his jacket off his shoulders as he carried her to the chaise longue. His hands worked the buttons on her bodice. With each sensuous push and pull of his lips on hers, she traced the play of his muscles on his back and his arms, their mouths hungry and searching. His shirt, only half unlaced, fell around her as he held himself braced with one hand above. She could feel her pulse pounding and the touch of his hand
between her legs. He kissed her stomach.

“Is this still your time of the month?”

She shook her head, shocked that he would have known. “No.”

Then he was between her legs, low over her belly, releasing the tension of his thumb, he gently kissed her cleft, preparing her by the slowest degrees for his invasion. He brought her legs up over his shoulders and without preamble or seduction, he replaced his fingers with his mouth, the sheer force of his oral penetration driving her hips upward. His tongue flicked against her clitoris. She cried out, breathy and shaking. Her fingers curled in his hair.

She thought she might scream and yet she held him there lifting herself higher so he could suckle all of her. He slid his tongue around the nub and then inside her, pulling, tasting, she could not decide if she should cry out in pain or pleasure. In the end, she did both as the pressure inside her released. Still rocked with tremors, Erik rose above her. He kept his eyes riveted on her face until she looked up at him, half-naked, her skirts rucked around her waist, her hair spread over the chaise and trailing to the floor.