She already had. She was lost.
He sought her jaw with his mouth, the tender place beneath her ear.
“I have not ceased thinking of you,” he uttered. “Not an hour has gone by that I have not recalled the music of your voice, the perfume of your skin, or the pleasure of being inside you.”
“You left Willows Hall abruptly. I thought you despised me for wanting you. Yet now you say this.
And you kiss me. I cannot think.”
“You did not tell me the truth, did you?” His mouth pressed against her hair, his voice low. “It was only Poole, wasn’t it? Why did you wish me to believe otherwise?”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “I wanted you to be certain of my inability to conceive. What did it matter if I’d had one or a hundred lovers?”
“What did he do to you, Kitty?”
“What drove me to seek revenge on him? Nothing,” she whispered. “He did nothing.” She had done it to herself, nursing her hurt into vengeance. She understood that now.
His breathing seemed uneven. “He must have.”
“You needn’t worry, Leam. I will not come after you when we are through with one another. One man’s ruination suffices for me this lifetime.”
“Kitty, do not speak such words. Do not.” His big hands bracketed her hips and slid up her waist, in command of her body as though it were his to do with as he wished. He spoke against her cheek. “I do not wish to be through with one another.”
“Not yet. But—” His mouth found hers. She twined her fingers in his hair and let him kiss her as though they never would be through with one another.
He drew away, his hand again circling her face, thumb caressing her lips as he had done before.
“I must see to a matter now.” His gaze moved across her features, then to her eyes. “Promise me you will not do what Gray has asked of you.”
“Why not?”
“Because it does not become your soul to muddle in such pretense. Leave it to those whose souls are already blackened.” He touched his lips to hers gently, tenderly, then more fully. “I must go,” he whispered against her mouth, then released her and stepped back. He took a deep breath.
“Will you return?” Kitty bit her lip, but the words had already tripped out.
He smiled. “Is the ban on my entrance into this house lifted, then?”
She wanted to ask him if it should be. If he returned, did it mean that he was returning with sincere intentions?
“Perhaps we should leave it open to interpretation,” she said instead.
He nodded, bowed, and went out. This time when Kitty sank down upon a chair, jelly-legged and weak, she did not cry. She hoped.
London never quieted, not even in the drenching cold of a February rain. Leam worked his way through carriages and carts and pedestrians, through puddles and across sparkling roads rising with the stench of a city awash in busy commerce, intent upon his destination.
On a neat block he gave his horse into the keeping of a boy. For a moment he stared at the narrow town house before him, nothing of particular note about its plain brown façade and black iron rail. Its resident might not even be at home now. The knocker, however, was up; the man was at least in town.
Leam was as impetuous as ever. His presence here proved it. His brief call on Kitty the day before proved it even more surely. She wanted him and he needed to be with her. If that meant tackling his demons, he would do so.
First he must find David Cox. In the sennight Leam had been back in town, Cox had not contacted him. Leam and his solicitor had both visited Lloyd’s, looking for information on the insurance agent, but none knew anything of him after his departure for America five years earlier.
He would not be defeated. He did not pause to regret his haste in paying this particular call. But his gut was tight as he went to the door and knocked. A servant answered, narrow-faced and pale. He assessed Leam’s bedraggled appearance before lifting his brows.
“May I help you, monsieur?”
Leam handed him a calling card. “Fesh me yer master.”
The manservant’s nostrils flared. He nodded, ushered him into the foyer, and took his coat and hat.
“Swith awa, man.” Leam gestured impatiently. “A dinna hae aw day.” He could gladly wait forever to have this conversation, but the time had come, and he had purpose now he’d never had before.
“Je vous en prie, my lord,” the manservant said with stiff disapproval. “If you will wait in the parlor.”
Leam went into the chamber and to the window, and stared into the gray day at the neat row of elegant buildings across the street. By God, he wanted out of town houses. Out of London. Out of England. She would never have him anyway. Not for long, at least. For all the passion and warmth beneath her society hauteur, she had been made for this world. The world he had lied to for years.
A footstep at the threshold turned his head. Nearly as tall as Leam, with a slash of straight black hair falling across his brow, penetrating green eyes, and a Gallic elegance to his clothing and air, Felix Vaucoeur was a handsome man.
“I saw your card,” he said without any trace of accent, his English as fluid as Leam’s when he wished it, “but did not quite believe it.”
“Your manservant is an impertinent snob, Vaucoeur. Do you pay him to frighten away callers?”
The comte moved to the sideboard and took up a carafe of dark liquid.
“Rather late to be paying me a call finally, Blackwood.” He poured out two glasses, then turned and came across the chamber. He handed one to Leam and met his gaze. “And hypocritical.”
Leam studied the man who had killed his brother. In nearly six years their paths had not crossed.
To protect both Leam and James from scandal, their uncle, the Duke of Read, had seen to it that Vaucoeur received a pardon, and the duel was put about as a hunting accident. Vaucoeur had gone into the countryside to avoid gossip, where he remained until the war ended and he returned for a time to his estate on the Continent. But the English half of Vaucoeur’s blood had always been stronger, despite his French title.
Leam set his glass on a table. “You haven’t any idea why I am here.”
“Ah.” The comte turned and went back to the sideboard.
“I need your help.”
Vaucoeur paused in lifting the carafe.
“I am looking for a man who claims to have served with you and my brother on the Peninsula,” Leam said. “David Cox. Fair, good-looking. Says he is in insurance now. Do you remember such a fellow?”
“Why not inquire at the War Office?”
“I’ve more interest in him than his address.”
Vaucoeur’s eyes narrowed. “What business is that of mine?”
“I don’t know that it’s any. Cox has been following me, and he has threatened those close to me. I must make certain it hasn’t anything to do with my brother before I pursue other avenues.”
“You imagine I might have had something to do with him, this tradesman who claims to have known James. A good-looking fellow, one of our regiment mates.” Vaucoeur set down his glass with a quiet click. “What?”
“What do you mean?”
“What business might I have had with this Mr. Cox that could have involved your brother?”
For a long stretch of silence they stared at each other.
“Why did you allow me to goad you into it?” Leam finally uttered. “Even so, I exaggerate. I barely had to nudge you to challenge him.”
Vaucoeur spoke slowly. “He violated my sister.”
“He violated a great many men’s sisters,” Leam replied. “But he was in love with you.”
“That was his misfortune.” The reply came too swiftly, too smoothly, practiced, as though he had been waiting to say the words for almost six years.