“I am the very model of a modern major-general…”
Chapter Five
Ian studied Beth’s nimble fingers as they tripped across the keyboard. Her nails were small and rounded, neatly trimmed, her only adornment a silver ring on the little finger of her left hand.
Her soothing alto flowed over him, though he didn’t bother to make sense of the words.
“I’m very good at integral and differential calculus; I know the scientific names of beings animalculous…”
The blue rosette at her bosom rose and fell as she sang, and her elbow slid across his waistcoat as she reached up and down the keyboard. Light blue silk flowed across her lap—no more drab gray for Beth Ackerley. Isabella must have taken her in hand. One curl fell across her cheek as she sang. He watched it bounce against her skin, watched her mouth pronouncing the lively words. He wanted to take the curl between his lips and pull it straight.
At last the tune lilted upward with her voice: “I am the very model of a modern majorgeneral.” A few tinkling chords, and that was the end. Beth smiled at him, out of breath. “I haven’t practiced in a while. I have no excuse now, since Isabella has this excellent piano.”
Ian laid his fingers on the keys where Beth’s had been.
“Is the song supposed to make sense?”
“Do you mean to say you’ve never seen The Pirates of Penzance? Mrs. Barrington dragged me to it four times. She’d sing along with the entire performance, to the dismay of the audience around us.”
Ian went to the theatre or opera when Mac or Hart or Cameron took him along, and he didn’t much care what he saw there. The thought of taking Beth to this show and having her explain it appealed to him.
He recalled the notes exactly as she’d played them, and they came tripping out of his fingers. He sang the words, not caring about meaning.
Beth smiled as he performed his trick, and then she joined in. “With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse…”
They ran through it, Beth singing in his ear. He wanted to turn and kiss her, but he couldn’t stop in the middle of a piece. He had to play it to the end. He finished with a flourish.
“That was—“ Ian cut off her praise by cupping the nape of her neck and taking her mouth in a hard kiss. Beth tasted brandy, felt the burn of his whiskers. He laced his fingers through the hair at the base of her neck, fingertips finding sensitive skin. He kissed her like a lover, as if she were his courtesan. She imagined glittering, overly sensual ladies melting like ice on a hot sidewalk when Ian touched them. He feathered kisses onto Beth’s cheekbones. His breath was hot, and she felt her body loosening, flowing like water.
“I shouldn’t let you do this,” she whispered.
“Why not?”
“Because I think you could break my heart.” He traced his finger around her lips, outlining the cleft of the top lip and the roundness of the lower. His gaze remained on her lips as his large hand moved to her thigh. “Are you wet?” Ian whispered, teeth on her earlobe.
“Yes.” She tried to swallow. “If you must know, I am quite, quite damp.”
“Good.” His hot tongue circled the shell of her ear. “You understand such things. Why you need to be wet.”
“My husband explained on our wedding night. He thought that ignorance on the woman’s part was the cause of much unnecessary pain.”
“An unusual vicar.”
“Oh, Thomas was quite the radical. A thorn in the side of his bishop, with all his modern views.”
“I would like to explain even more,” Ian whispered.
“Someplace more private than here.”
“That’s a mercy.” Beth laughed a little. “It is fortunate I am not a delicate, shielded lady. If I were, I’d be on the ground in a state of unconsciousness, with Isabella’s servants trying to fan me.”
His eyes flickered. “Does what I say anger you?”
“No, but never speak like that in a drawing room full of ladies and fine china, I implore you. There would be quite a mess.”
He nuzzled her hair. “I’ve never been with a lady before. I don’t know the rules.”
“Fortunately, I’m an unusual sort of woman. Mrs. Barrington did her best to change that, but she never succeeded, bless her.”
“Why should she want to change you?”
Beth warmed. “My lord, I do believe you are the most flattering man of my acquaintance.”
Ian paused, his expression unreadable. “I state truths. You are perfect as you are. I want to see you bare, and I wish to kiss your cunny.”
The heat there flared. “And as always, I don’t know whether to run away from you or stay and bask in your attention.”
“I know how to answer that.” He snaked his strong fingers around her wrist. “Stay.” His hand was heavy and warm, and he traced a circle on the inside of her arm. “I must confess that your plain speaking is refreshing after the acrobatics I must perform to keep up with Isabella’s friends.”
“Tell Isabella’s gentlemen friends to keep far from you. I don’t want them touching you.”
His fingers clamped down, and she glanced pointedly at his large hand still wedged into her skirts. “Only you can touch me?”
He nodded, brows together. “Yes.”
“I don’t think I mind that,” she said softly.
“Good.”
He moved her deftly onto his lap, her bustle not letting her sit quite against him. Disappointing things, bustles. The blue rosette at her bosom crushed against Ian’s waistcoat, and he cupped his hand around her bottom. She didn’t argue, didn’t gasp at him for taking a liberty. She wanted to take even more of a liberty with him. She wanted to undo the buttons of his trousers and put her hand inside. She wanted to work through layers of cloth until she could stroke his swollen organ, to feel it against her hand. Never mind that they sat in Isabella’s front drawing room; never mind that the curtains were wide open to the busy Paris street.
“I am a wicked, wicked woman,” she murmured. “Kiss me again.”
Without a word he swiftly slanted his lips over hers. His tongue stabbed inside her mouth, and he pressed his fingers to the corners of her lips, opening her wider. These weren’t the kisses of a man flirting. They were the kisses of a man who wanted to lie with her, damn the timing and damn the circumstances. Every part of her that touched him throbbed.
“We should stop,” she whispered.
“Why?”
Beth couldn’t think of a reason. I am a widowed lady, well past the age of innocence. Why should I not kiss a handsome man in a drawing room? A little carnality won’t hurt me.
She snaked her wanton hand between his thighs, finding the hard ridge behind his trousers.
“Mmm.” One corner of his mouth turned up. “Do you want to touch it?”
Yes, please, said the wicked lady. “I can hear the china breaking now.”
“What?” His brow furrowed.
“Never mind. You are a rogue and a scoundrel, and I love every single second of it.”
“I don’t understand you.”
She cupped his face. “Never mind, never mind. I’m sorry I spoke.”
Her lips felt raw, swollen from his kisses. She kissed the curve of his lower lip, tasting the corners of his mouth as he’d done with her. He chased her tongue, pinning it inside her mouth before he proceeded to lick every inch of it.
He wants me to welcome him into my bed and not be ashamed. This was a world she didn’t know, one she’d only glimpsed through half-closed curtains behind which diamond bedecked women smiled at cigar-smoke-wreathed gentlemen. So many houses, so many windows, so much warmth inside, and this was the first time she’d been invited in. The door suddenly banged open, and Isabella strolled into the room in a blue silk dressing gown. Beth tried to jump away from Ian, but he was holding her too tight. She ended up half sitting on, half sliding off his knee. Isabella peered blearily about. “Ian, darling, what are you doing here playing Gilbert and Sullivan at the crack of
dawn? I thought I was having a nightmare.”
Beth finally slid to her feet, her face flaming. “I beg your pardon, Isabella. We didn’t mean to wake you.” Isabella’s eyes widened. “I see. I beg your pardon for interrupting.”
Thank heavens for corsets, Beth thought distractedly. Her nipples were hard little points against the fabric, but the thick boning would hide it.
Ian didn’t rise. He leaned one elbow on the piano and studied the moldings behind Isabella.
“Will you stay to breakfast, Ian?” Isabella asked. “I’ll try to prop my eyes open long enough to join you.” He shook his head. “I came to deliver Beth a message.”
“Did you?”
Beth asked. How ridiculous, she’d never thought to ask why he’d suddenly appeared in Isabella’s drawing room.
“From Mac.” Ian continued to stare across the room. “He says he’ll be ready to start your drawing lessons in three days. He wants to finish the painting he’s working on first.”
Isabella answered before Beth could. “Really? My husband was always so good at doing two things at once.” Her voice was strained.
“The model is Cybele,” Ian answered. “Mac doesn’t want Beth there while Cybele is.”
Pain flashed through Isabella’s eyes. “He never bothered about such things with me.”
Ian didn’t answer, and Beth couldn’t help asking, “Is this Cybele so awful?”
“She’s a foulmouthed tart,” Isabella said. “Mac introduced me to her to shock me when we first married. He loved to shock me. It became his raison d’etre.”
Ian had turned his head to stare out the window, as though the conversation no longer interested him. Isabella’s delight evaporated, and her face looked pinched and tired.
“Oh, well, Ian, if you aren’t staying for breakfast, I’ll drag myself back to bed. Good morning to you.” She drifted out, leaving the door open behind her. Beth watched her go, not liking how unhappy Isabella looked. “Can you stay to breakfast?” she asked Ian. He shook his head and rose to his feet—did he regret leaving or was he happy to go? “Mac expects me at his studio. He gets worried if I don’t appear.”
“Your brothers like to look after you.” Beth felt a pang. She’d grown up so alone, with no sisters or brothers, and no friends she could trust.
“They’re afraid.”
“Of what?”
Ian kept his gaze out the window, as though he didn’t hear her. “I want to see you again.”
A hundred polite refusals Mrs. Barrington had drilled into her flitted through her head and out again. “Yes, I’d like to see you, too.”
“I will send you a message through Curry.”
“Ever resourceful, is your Mr. Curry.”
He wasn’t listening. “The soprano,” he said. Beth blinked. “I beg your pardon?” She remembered the newspaper article that had bothered her so much the day she’d met Mac.
“Oh. That soprano.”
“I asked Cameron to pretend to argue with me about her. I wanted people to focus on the soprano and forget about you. He was happy to oblige. He enjoyed it.” People must have seen Beth enter the Mackenzie box, perhaps had seen Ian spirit her away to Cameron’s coach. He’d created a public argument with Cameron to divert attention from Beth to the Mackenzies, famous for their sordid affairs.
“Pity,” Beth said faintly. “It was such a well-done story.”
“It is not what happened.”
“I realize that. I’m overwhelmed.”
“Why should it overwhelm you?”
“My dear Lord Ian, the paid companion is the last person anyone thinks to spare gossip about. She is drab and faded—her own fault, really, that no one wanted to marry her.”
“Who the devil told you that?”
“Dear Mrs. Barrington, although she didn’t put it quite like that. I should be demure and forgettable, she said. She had the best of intentions. She was trying to protect me, you see.”
“No.” He stared at her, his gaze resting on a curl over her ear. “I don’t see.”
“That’s all right. You don’t need to.”
Ian went silent again, lost in his own thoughts. Then he looked at her abruptly, crushed her to him, and pressed a swift kiss to her mouth.
Before Beth could gasp, he stood her bodily aside and strode out of the room. Beth stood still, her lips burning, until the cold draft from the slamming front door announced that he’d gone.
“Darling, how lovely,” Isabella said that evening, holding out her arm so her maid could slide a glove up it. “You and Ian.” Her green eyes danced, but shadows stained her face.
“I am so pleased.”
“Nothing lovely about it,” Beth said. “I am being horribly scandalous.”
Isabella gave her a knowing smile. “Whatever you say. I shall wait avidly for further news on the subject.”
“Do you not have a ball to attend, Isabella?”
Isabella kissed Beth’s cheeks, bathing her in a wash of perfume. “Are you sure you don’t mind me running off, my dear? I hate to leave you alone.”
“No, no. Go and enjoy yourself. I’m rather tired tonight, and I don’t mind time to gather my thoughts.”
Beth wanted a quiet night, not feeling up to the scrutiny of Paris this evening, even with Isabella’s protection. Isabella knew “absolutely everyone,” and had introduced Beth around with enthusiasm. Isabella hinted that Beth was a mysterious heiress from England, which seemed to go over well with the artists, writers, and poets that flocked to Isabella. Tonight Beth was willing to forgo the glamour. She would write about her day in her journal, then retire and indulge in fantasies about Ian Mackenzie. She had no business indulging in fantasies about him, but she didn’t care.
Once Isabella had gone, Beth asked the butler to serve her a cold supper in her chamber. Then she took up a pen and turned to her diary.
She’d begun an account of her adventures in Paris, which she scribbled about whenever she had a moment. As she chewed leftover meat pie, she flipped to clean pages at the end of the notebook.
I’m not certain how he makes me feel, she wrote. His hands are large and strong, and I wanted too much for him to lift them to my bosom. I wanted to press my breasts inside his palms. I wanted to feel the heat of his bare hands against my nipples. My body shouted for it, but I refused its wishes, knowing it was impossible in that time and place. Does that mean I wish him to do such things in another time and place?
I want to unbutton my frock for him. I want him to unlace my stays and ease them from my body. I want him to touch me as I haven’t been touched in years. I ache for it. I do not think of him as Lord Ian Mackenzie, aristocratic brother of a duke and well beyond my reach; not as the Mad Mackenzie, an eccentric people stare at and whisper about.
To me, he is simply Ian.
“Madam,” Katie bleated from the doorway.
Beth jumped and slammed her notebook closed. “Good heavens, Katie, you startled me. Is something wrong?”
“Footman says a gentleman’s called to see you.”
Beth rose. Her skirt caught a spoon and sent it clattering to the floor. “Who? Lord Ian?”
“I would have said so right away if it was him, wouldn’t I? No, Henri says it’s a gent from the police.”
Beth’s brows rose. “The police? Why should the police want to see me?”
“I don’t know, madam. Says he’s an inspector or something, and he’s English, not a frog. I promise you, I haven’t stolen a thing since you caught me when I was fifteen. Not a bleedin’ thing.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Beth retrieved the spoon with a shaking hand. “I don’t think stealing oranges in Covent Garden ten years ago would warrant an inspector chasing you to Paris tonight.”
“I hope you’re right,” Katie said darkly.
Beth locked her notebook away in her jewelry case and pocketed the key before she made her way downstairs. The French footman bowed to her as he opened the door, and Beth thanked him in his own
language.
A man in a faded black suit turned from the fire as she entered. “Mrs. Ackerley?”
He was tall, though not as tall as Ian. He wore his dark hair slicked back from his forehead, and his eyes were hazel. He was in his thirties and nearly handsome, though his luxuriant mustache didn’t hide the grim set to his mouth. Beth stopped just inside the door. “Yes? My companion says you are from the police.”
“My name is Fellows. I’ve called to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”
He held out an ivory card that had seen better days.
Lloyd Fellows, Insp., Scotland Yard, London.
“I see.” Beth gave the card back to him, not liking how it felt in her hand.
“May we sit down, Mrs. Ackerley? There is no need for you to be uncomfortable.”
He gestured her to a plush armchair, and Beth perched on the end of it. Inspector Fellows took the hard chair from the desk, turned it around, and sat, looking utterly composed. “I won’t stay long, so you may dispense with the usual polite offering of tea.” He eyed her keenly. “I’ve come to ask you how long you have known Lord Ian Mackenzie.”
“Lord Ian?” Beth stared in surprise.
“Youngest brother of the Duke of Kilmorgan, brother-in-law to the lady who owns this house.”
His tone was brutal and sarcastic, but the look in his eyes was… odd. “Yes, I do know who he is, Inspector.”
“You met him in London, I believe?”
“Why is that your business? I met him in London, and I met his brother and his sister-inlaw here in Paris. I don’t believe any of this is against the law.”
“Today you spoke to Lord Ian here in this house.” Her heart beat faster. “You’ve been watching me?” She thought of the drapes pulled back from the windows of this very room, and herself perched on Ian’s knee, kissing him madly.
Fellows leaned forward, his expression unreadable. “I’ve not come here to accuse you of anything, Mrs. Ackerley. My visit is in the nature of a warning.”
“Against what? Speaking to my friend’s brother-in-law in her home?”
“Mixing in the wrong company could prove your downfall, young woman. You mark my words.”