“Yours.” He nodded toward the two globes. When she did not move, his brow furrowed in a rare display of uncertainty. “You don’t like them.”
“No, I—” She shook her head. “I don’t know where to begin, which one to look at first.”
“Start with the Earth, then work your way to the heavens.”
She did. Her finger traced over the coastline of Eastern Africa, from Cape Horn, past Madagascar, to the Gulf of the Arabian Sea. There were names she did not recognize, rivers she did not know. How the world had changed, and she did not even realize it!
In a daze, she moved to the celestial map. Here, myths arrayed themselves in an eternal dance—vain Cassiopeia, brutal Hercules, the fallen hunter Orion—tales of hubris and loss told in the language of stars.
Still unable to truly speak, Anne could only gaze at Leo. The cost of the globes had to be phenomenal, for they were large and modern. And beautiful.
“There’s more.” He flipped open the brass catches on the flat wooden box, and opened the lid.
This time, Anne did gasp.
Maps filled the box. She could not stop herself from moving in front of Leo and pulling out map after map. The Americas, the Baltic Sea, China and the Japans.
“There are dozens of maps in here.” She lay them out upon the desk, but they were so numerous, their edges overlapped, a world folding in on itself. She wanted to spend hours studying each and every one. She could barely comprehend any of it.
“Are there enough? I can get more.”
She stared at him. “This is ... this is ...” Her voice trailed off. “You have given me the world.” Beyond that, with the maps, he had brought her the rational word, banishing fear.
“They please you.” Pure male pride illuminated him, and he seemed to grow even taller.
“Please is too mild a word. Leo, you overwhelm me.” It was more than the expense, though she knew the price to be astronomical. He had heard her, listened to her. “There is no gift equal to this.”
“Good.” His gaze was warm as he trailed a finger along the line of her jaw.
“I have something for you, too.”
His brows rose, and he looked almost comically surprised. “For me?”
“It isn’t half so extraordinary as what you have provided, nor as numerous. But ...” She reached into her pockets. “Guess which hand.”
After a moment’s deliberation, he picked her left hand. She held it out.
“Three shillings seven,” he said, counting the coins.
“From Lord Daleford. Now pick the right hand.”
He did. “Two shillings thruppence.”
“From Lord Kirton.”
Leo stared at her hands, then up at her face, his expression one of wonderment. “You did it.”
She nodded. “I must own, it was rather ... exciting, finding a means of extracting the coins. Rather cunning of me.” Her cheeks heated, and she studied him. “They please you,” she echoed.
“More than please me.” He laid his palms over hers, covering them and the coins. For a moment, his gaze went far-off, as if briefly distracted by a thought or memory, but they quickly cleared, and all he seemed to see was her. “I’m more than overwhelmed, Anne. I’m ... humbled.”
It shocked her, the truth of his words. She thought nothing and no one could ever breach his pride, this fierce man who admitted no weakness, no impediment. Yet a handful of coins had done just that. She had done it.
“I don’t want you humble.” She threaded her fingers with his, so their hands clasped. “I want you precisely as you are.”
His eyes closed; his jaw tightened. Something passed through him, a wave of ferocious energy, and an answering power responded in her. In silence, they called out to each other. In silence, they responded.
He opened his eyes. What she saw there—her breath caught. Leo, the man. Without ramparts, fortifications, constructed identities. The saddler’s son.
This was the finest gift of all. Not expensive maps and globes, but him. She understood that she alone had ever seen him this way. And it appeared to frighten him a little.
“Observe.” She pulled out a map. “The last a map I saw of North America was Mitchell’s, over eight years ago. There are far more places with names between now and then.”
Apprehension dimmed in his gaze. “The spread of civilization.”
“In your case,” she said, smiling, “new opportunities for investment.”
“I ought to invest in cartography.” He studied the boundaries delineated on the map. “For all this will change with the end of the war with France. Will you take a commission?”
Anne laughed. “I have merely an appreciation for mapmaking, not an aptitude.”
His gaze flicked up to her. “I’ll hire men to teach you, if you desire.”
She laughed again, thinking he jested, but saw his sincerity. “Studying them contents me. If you wish to have a map drawn, it would be far wiser to engage an experienced cartographer.”
“As you wish. But if you change your mind, you’ve but to say the word.” He bent to examine the map once more. She stared at his lowered head, his hair pulled back into a simple queue, yet burnished as gold.
He would give her everything, just as she would hold nothing back from him. She believed herself utterly open to him, yet she knew this was not entirely true.
She had not informed him of Lord Whitney’s letter, and its secret lay in her heart like a waiting poison.
Chapter 9
He was in a fever of impatience. He left Exchange Alley as soon as business had concluded for the day. Normally, he stayed until the last bleary trader or investment seeker staggered from the coffee houses. He had been the first to arrive, last to leave.
Now, he strode down Lombard, the sun still high. It had been a good day’s work. Between his own instincts and his visions of the future, he would net himself a very fine profit. But he had not been working entirely on his own. Anne provided him with a steady stream of coins from England’s most ancient and esteemed families. Lord Kirton, who had publicly called Leo a “baseborn scoundrel,” would find his investment in South American coffee to be a poor one after hurricanes destroyed his crops. Leo had counterinvested in another coffee harvest. His fortunes would rise, and Kirton would suffer.
Leo walked quickly toward home, barely hearing the tolling of Saint Mary-le-Bow’s bells. Over the past week, since he and Anne had consummated their marriage, he had become a man on a rack, torn between two needs.
Building his fortune, destroying his enemies—these were the demands of the day. He awoke every morning in a fever of impatience, needing to devastate those in his path, to have more. It fueled his daylight hours, like tinder thrown upon flame, yet the fire’s demands never ceased. He wanted his coffers overflowing, and the power to crush those who opposed him, consigning them to a life of humiliation and poverty. The greater his fortune, the more power he wielded. And he would use it like a vengeful god.
The demands of the night, those were the sweet to his days’ metallic taste. Even now, hastening through the streets of London, past Gray’s Inn, need to see Anne pulsed through him.
This week with Anne ... He’d never experienced its like. Their bedsport was delicious, especially as they both grew more confident with each other. Every night, after exhausting himself and her, he sank into a profound slumber, his arms wrapped around her, soft and slumberous and murmuring contentment.
Oh, but it was more, so much more, than the pleasure their bodies gave each other. With her, he found himself ... comfortable. For the first time in perhaps the whole of his life. All of his other identities—upstart, knave—fell away. She did not judge him for his choices, had no expectations for him to be anything other than himself. Even with the Hellraisers, he kept part of himself guarded as he acted the part of rake and libertine.