Firelight (37 page)

He tore the silk mask from his head as he came near. Miranda’s resolve softened as she saw the joy in his eyes in doing so. It was the first time he’d taken the mask off in front of her. Black kohl encircled his eyes, and her lips twitched.

“You look like a bandit,” she said as he bent to kiss her.

Archer paused, caught between a grin and a grimace. “Right.” He brushed a kiss over her nose and then strode toward her bathing room, impatiently pulling off his suit coat as he went. Her heart stayed locked in her throat as she stared after him.

He emerged not a minute later, freshly scrubbed and wearing only his drawers and shirtsleeves. “Is it unmanly to say that I prefer your face cream to mine?” he asked, unbuttoning his shirt with a deftness and speed that entranced her.

“No.” Nothing about him could ever be considered unmanly. Again the flash came, of him not changed but whole and unaffected. Golden skinned. His hair not shorn but with glossy raven locks.
Ben
.

The shirt fell to the floor, and her breath hitched. He was simply beautiful. From the corded muscles of his shoulders and arms, to the little hollow between his collarbones, and the flat, matched ridges running down his abdomen like paving bricks, all of it was beautiful, and enough to make words fail her.

He read her look and grinned wide enough for small lines to dimple his cheeks. “Hello,” he whispered before catching her up. She could not think. It was like a drug taking hold of her when they kissed. She pressed against him, her lips throbbing under his ministrations. Could a man be an addiction?

His quick fingers made short work of her laces. Her bodice fell free, and his thumb ran under the curve of her breast. Hot shivers fanned out along her belly. She pulled away, her hands going to his shoulders to hold him off. “No,” she said. “Stop.”

Her tone froze him. Slowly he moved off the bed and sat back on his heels. His gray eyes searched her face and, reading what was so plainly there, he set his chin firm—a fully guilt-ridden gesture if ever Miranda saw one.

“Were you going to tell me?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” The pulse at the base of his throat throbbed as he sat watching her, his body still as stone, and the ache in Miranda’s chest turned to pain.

“Well, that
is
heartening,” she snapped, her fingers digging into the covers. “Honesty above all, is it?”

“Who was it?” he said, still frozen in place. “Eula? Mckinnon?” A hot wash of color rose up over his left cheek, and he jumped to his feet. “Son of a bitch.”

Miranda jumped up too. “What does it matter who told me? It should have been you!”

“Tell you?” he snapped, his color rising. “You, who professed the possibility of what I was a nightmare?”

She winced at that, but her anger flared higher. “God! How stupid I’ve been.” She paced in a helpless fury. “I asked you flat out. And what do you say to me? ‘Lord Benjamin Archer died in eighteen-fifteen!’ ” Her voice rose as she punched the air. “When really it was you all along! Lord Benjamin Aldo Fitzwilliam Wallace Archer, third Baron Archer of Umberslade.”

Ben watched her rant, his arms crossed over his chest, his jaw tight. “Yes, I am the third Baron Archer of Umberslade,” he said tightly. “Does it really change who I am?”

“Of course it does!” She spun round. “It makes you a liar. When I have given you all of my truths.”

He took a step forward, the flat muscles along his abdomen bunching. “By degrees,” he said, flinging his arm wide. “Doled out like pieces of Sunday cake. And I understood that. It is what we all do.”

“That is not at all the same thing! There is a difference between refraining from divulging the truth and outright lying.”

Archer snorted. “Which appears to be knowing what questions to ask.”

Her fists balled at her sides in an effort to hold still. “You ought to have believed in me. Believed in us. And those men, those poor old men. You’re as old as they are!” She pressed her hands to her face, wanting to scream but unable to. “God.”

“And what should I have said?” His dark brows rose in inquiry. “ ‘I’m sorry, darling, but even if I do get better, I might turn into a withered husk and most likely die within months.’ Would that have eased the way?”

Hearing it come from him hit like a slap. The floor tilted beneath Miranda. She could not stay and watch him be destroyed. “I’m leaving,” she said through numb lips.

She turned for the door.

He was in front of her in an instant, slamming the door shut with his fist. “No.” He grabbed her shoulders, spinning her round, shoving her back against the wall. “No,” he said again, his voice breaking. His lips crushed against her, his fingers biting into her flesh.

She yielded to the pressure, and his tongue dove into her mouth. Miranda sucked it hard, needing to taste him, and he groaned. His fist pressed into her back, holding her tight enough to take her breath away.

“You can’t leave me.” He took her lower lip between his teeth. “I won’t let you go.”

She nipped back, her legs clenching his hard thigh. Shaking, his hand tore at her chemise and the fabric ripped.

“No.” She wrenched her head to the side, away from his seeking mouth. “No!”

“Miri.” It was a whimper of pain.

Suddenly she was hitting him, striking his hard chest with her fists. “You should have told me!”

He took her assault without flinching, and her hands fell to her sides. Hurting him only hurt her more.

He gazed at her sorrowfully but made no move to touch her. “My only excuse is fear,” he whispered thickly.

“A sorry excuse,” she sobbed, breathless from her spent fury. “When have you ever felt fear? The dauntless Lord Archer. When I think of how you looked upon Cheltenham’s body… you didn’t even flinch. It was as if you felt nothing.”

“Felt nothing?” he hissed. His brow wrinkled as he stepped back. “Felt nothing!” He moved with a blur of speed and struck the side of the wardrobe. The thick wood tore like paper under the impact of his fist.

He spun back to face her, the fine muscles along his shoulders and chest tensing as a milky light pulsed through his changed flesh—the sight of which alarmed Miranda more than his fury.

“It was all I could do not to scream when we found Chelt.” He grasped the short hairs upon his head as though he’d tear them out. Words poured from him like a purgative. “Cheltenham and I visited each other in the nursery. Merryweather and I roomed together in Cambridge. And Leland… Leland was my best mate. He brought me into West Club, then helped cast me out of London.”

His large frame began to shake as if he’d soon break apart. Miranda moved toward him, the pain of seeing him suffer stronger than her anger, but he glared at her fiercely. “Do you have any idea…” His breath hitched. “I’ve had to watch them age, turn gray. I couldn’t stand it. I had to get away. That is the true reason I left, not because they told me to go. And when I came back they were old, withered. A reminder of what I should be.”

He took a shuddering breath, and his shoulders fell. “I’ve watched
you
age. From a lovely young creature to this woman who is so achingly beautiful… God!”

He spread his arms wide in entreaty before letting them fall. “I lied. I lied when I said your beauty does not affect me. I look at you, and I’m breathless, dizzy from it. I want to kneel at your feet and worship you. While the baser part of me wants to fling up your skirts and stick my cock in you until we forget our names.” His nostrils flared as he glared at her, accusation and pain mingling within his eyes.

“But none of that matters,” he said, trembling before her, “because every day that I am with you, I am more convinced that God made you just for me. For in ninety years on this earth, no one has made me feel the way you do, as if every day is an adventure. You make me laugh. And I never laugh. I go around smiling like a witless fool. So yes, I kept it from you, because I am so desperately in love with you that the knowledge that you might love me too was irresistible. And I was afraid it would turn to dust should I take off that mask.”

A sound tore from his throat, and he turned away to lean against the wardrobe, resting his forearms over his head. The silver lines of his body glimmered in the afternoon sun that slanted through the lacy curtains. His voice drifted out, rough and choked. “How am I to resist the one thing I’ve ever truly wanted?”

His forehead hit the wood with a thud. “I am sorry, Miri,” he finished weakly.

Miranda’s vision blurred. There were lies, and there were lies. She went to him, sliding between his strong body and the wardrobe. Despite his distress, his arm automatically reached out to cocoon her against him as he breathed raggedly. “I’m sorry, Miri,” he whispered against her hair. “I’m sorry…”

She smoothed his back. “Hush.” Her lips brushed across his collarbone. She looked up at him through her tears and found his eyes red, his thick lashes clumping like spikes. “Do you think it is any different for me? I want you so much it is a constant ache.”

He made a sound, and his lips found her temple. Soft kisses to ease her tears, yet her heart grew cold. She was losing him. He was retreating. Behind thick walls where feelings could not hurt him. She felt it as surely as the lips upon her brow. Miranda had lived in that cold dark place for most of her life.

She turned toward him, her cheek caressing his chin. “I need to hear your voice every day or I despair. You are the balance of my soul. I cannot lose you, Ben. I would not live through it.”

The very idea caused her to sob, and he caught her mouth with his. “Don’t cry,” he whispered against her lips, his big hand cupping her cheek. “I can’t bear it.” He kissed her tears as she kissed his cheeks, eyes, and beloved jaw line.

She closed her eyes and let her forehead rest against his as they breathed together. Sick dread slid down her belly. She could sense the wild desperation filling him. She would lose him to this madness.

“We can solve this together.” She kissed him softly, desperately. The taste of him broke her heart anew. “We will find a cure. And this killer… It takes only a thought for me to finish him. Do you understand?”

Suddenly he went utterly cold. “Yes.” He closed his eyes and released a deep sigh. The fight in him seemed to drain. “I understand you perfectly.”

When she moved to kiss him, he cupped her face in his hands, and his gray eyes searched her face as if to commit it to memory. “Know this, there is only one truth left to me.” His trembling fingertips caressed her jaw. “That I love you.” He said it again, his voice broken, his arms pulling her tightly against him. “I love you. The rest is darkness.”

Her fingers curled around the smooth swells of his biceps. “Then let me be your light.”

Archer shuddered, dragging an open-mouthed kiss across her cheek to claim her lips. “Always, Miri.” He grew tighter, colder in her arms. “All that I am, all that I become, is for you.”

Chapter Thirty-one

N
o!” Miranda lurched out of bed, her heart pounding painfully. Shaking, she buried her face in her hands until little prickles of awareness set in. She whipped round, knowing she was alone, but needing to see. The bedding at her side was rumpled and empty.
Archer
. On his pillow lay the silver rose and a note. Pain spread through her middle, doubling her over, and she grabbed the note, seeing Archer’s heavy scrawl, more slanted than usual.

—Forgive me
.

Her knees knocked as she fell from the bed and scrambled to reach the water closet in time. She retched until she had no more to give, then fell upon the smooth, hard floor.
Why? Why, Ben?

That he meant to face the killer alone was clear. Forgiveness meant only one thing—he did not mean to survive this confrontation.

Miranda curled into a tight ball, pressing her knees hard into her aching chest. But the pain did not abate. Cursing roundly, she climbed to her feet and washed her face and mouth. Wallowing would help no one.
That God damned sneaky bastard
.

Her fencing clothes, long unused but never forgotten, flew from her wardrobe as she heaped more curses upon her errant husband. If he thought she’d sit at home and let him go off to die he was sorely mistaken.

“Eula! Gilroy!” Her shouts rang out shrilly as she strode down the upper hall not two minutes later. Miranda swallowed down her panic. She needed to think. The bun secured at the nape of her neck was tight enough to pull her scalp, and her head pounded rather dreadfully.

The hall remained empty. Miranda’s boot heels clattered on the steps as she raced down them. “Eula!”

Finally, the cheeky woman appeared, shuffling with a gait worthy of Methuselah.

“Trying to wake the dead, are you? What’s amiss? You and Lord Rapturous run out of fresh beds?”

“He’s gone, Eula.” Her lip trembled, and she bit it hard. “For good.”

Eula drew herself up with purpose. “Where?”

“I-I don’t know. I thought you might.”
Damn and hell. I will not cry
.