The Danger of Desire (27 page)

When he placed her on the bed, she immediately sat up and swung her legs off the side.

“No.” He crowded her back. “You need to be in bed.”

“I’ll go to my room.” Her tone was plaintive.

“No.” He couldn’t explain it. He needed her near. He needed to take care of her, but he wasn’t prepared to sit up all night on top of a narrow spindly cot again when there were better arrangements at hand. “There’s no fire there. This one’s already laid.” He suited action to words and stepped away from her to light the fire, keeping one eye on her huddled figure. She stayed put on the edge of the bed and finally moved to unwrap one of the shawls swaddling her body, but the effort seemed to exhaust her.

“Let me help.” He began to undress her gently, but quickly. He thought to strive for the same sort of impersonal treatment he had given her when she had first arrived—that first prophetic bath—but somehow, after what he had just done, it seemed wrong. So he unravelled the shawls and pulled out her hairpins slowly, carefully, giving her time to accept his help, building her trust. But when he moved to take the pins out of her bodice, she jammed her elbows down tight and crossed her arms over her chest. “Lass,” he coaxed, “I’ve seen you naked before. You’re ill. You couldn’t even sit up if you weren’t so bloody stubborn. There’s nothing holding you up but willpower. Mrs. Tupper will be up in a moment, but we’ve got to get you out of these clothes and into bed.”

She allowed him to get her down to her chemise, and he left it at that. There was no sense in aggravating both of them. But when he knelt down to pull off her sturdy shoes and peel away her dark, woolen stockings, he couldn’t miss the faint smear of blood on her inner thighs. He was stabbed by a jolt of remorse so fierce it damn near made him queasy. Damn him for a bloody savage.

Hugh retreated across the adjoining doors to his own dressing room to find and wet a flannel cloth in the basin. He returned to her and stood for a few moments in idiotic indecision before he simply handed it to her.

“You need to wipe ... yourself off.”

“I suppose so,” she said in a small voice, as if she really didn’t know, as if she had yet to understand what had happened, what was happening to her body. She wiped off her tear-stained face.

“No, lass, there’s blood. On your ... legs.”

Two spots of hectic color burned their way high on her chalky cheeks. “Oh.”

Damn him for a lunatic. She was a street urchin from the Cheapside docks, for God’s sake. Surely she knew the basic facts of life? Surely a girl who was on a first-name basis with various Covent Garden whores knew? But then again, he had never, in a hundred years, expected her to be a virgin. He had not thought such a thing could be even remotely possible. But it had been. And he, of all people, should have seen it. He turned away. “I’ll see to the fire.”

When she was done, she dropped the cloth by the side of the bed and crawled stiffly under the covers, curling into herself. Shutting him out.

Hugh pulled the bell pull, and in another minute, Mrs. Tupper trundled in.

“She’s got a fever,” he informed her as he opened the door.

“Oh, I knew it,” she said as she came around the bed and laid a hand on Meggs’s forehead. “I didn’t like the look of her this evening. I just knew she’d taken a chill. Out in all that rain and cold. Open your mouth, lamb.” Mrs. Tupper held up a candle and peered into her mouth. “Putrid throat,” she pronounced.

“It’s just dry.” Meggs finally spoke. “If I might just have some tea, I’ll be fine.”

“Certainly tea. With lemon, if one can be found, and honey. And whiskey. And a hot mustard plaster.”

Meggs made a sound of protest but only managed to let out a croak.

“Should I send for the doctor, Captain?” the housekeeper asked.

Meggs swallowed hard and insisted, “I’m not going to die of a stupid cold.” He could hear the stubborn aggravation in her voice. “Just leave me alone. Please.” She turned her back to him.

“Just the tea for now, thank you, Mrs. Tupper, and liberally laced.”

When the housekeeper had departed, he moved closer to the bed. “Meggs.”

“Please, go.” Her voice was the merest whisper.

“In a moment.” He had a few more things he wanted to say. “We have to talk, Meggs. Your virginity—”

She made a brusk sound of dismissal. “Hardly matters now,” she muttered as she picked at the coverlet without looking at him.

“Stop it. Of course it does. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I did. I told you I wasn’t a ...”

“Whore. Yes, but there’s a fair amount of middle ground between virgin and whore, wouldn’t you agree?” He shoved his hand through his hair, tugging at his scalp, trying quite literally to get a grip on himself. “You might have told me.”

She turned to look at him then—her gaze as level as a blade, no hiding. “You wouldn’t have believed me.”

She was right. He wouldn’t. He hadn’t. He’d seen and thought only what he’d wanted to think about her, only what his body had demanded he see. To take what was offered. “You told me you had been forced.”

“Well, yes ...” she scrunched up her face, remembering. “But not
that.
”

“If not
that,
then what the hell were you talking about?”

“Forced to steal. Forced to live like rats, shivering together for warmth. Forced to eat garbage lying in the streets to stay bloody alive. Forced—” Her voice was giving out.

Damn him for an ass. “Shh. I’m sorry. I understand.”

“No, you don’t. You couldn’t possibly.”

“Forced to do things you’re not proud of, to stay alive. I
do
understand.”

She rolled up to sitting, and when she spoke, her voice was scratchy and raw but full of conviction. “I
am
proud, I don’t care what you or anybody else says. I am proud of what I learned to do and how I kept us alive. I’m proud I made the best of it. I
refuse
to be ashamed, do you hear me?”

Hugh closed his eyes against the wash of recognition flooding through him. Oh, yes, he heard her.
Things only turned out best for those who were prepared to make the best of the way things turned out
. This was why he could not keep his distance from this girl. Because she was the echo of himself, stripped of the civilizing veneer. They were savages together, the two of them.

At least, that’s what he had thought and why he had done what he’d done in her bath. It was what he
wanted
to believe.

But he had been wrong. He had lived in the world long enough to know and understand the cost, what it must have been like, with the life she had been forced to live, to keep her body unto herself. It would have taken restraint, and self-discipline, and careful, careful vigilance. And he had ruined it. He had ruined her.

“Meggs. Lass, I know what I did with you—to you—hurt you badly. In more ways than one. I have no excuse, except to say I made a grave mistake, thinking that was what you wanted, too. And I’m sorry you didn’t. I understand that now. But I’ve never wanted another woman the way I wanted—the way I still want—you.”

He had wanted her from the very first moment she’d walked into his library and pitted will and her body against him. He’d wanted her when she had thrown her clothes at him and told him to burn them. He’d wanted her so badly, his balls had ached for days.

He still did. So when Mrs. Tupper brought the hot, sweet tea liberally lashed with laudanum, he stomped downstairs and locked himself in his study, where he got himself a drink. And then he got himself another. And another.

CHAPTER 19

H
ugh was about to let the first Scotch whiskey of the morning smolder its way down his gullet when he saw the elegant, emblazoned carriage roll to a well-mannered stop at his front door. For a long moment, he thought seriously of going to ground and barring the door. It was why he had chosen to live in remote Chelsea in the first place, so he might avoid unnecessary visitations of this kind.

But hiding would be cowardly, and he was not a coward.

He was standing in the front hall behind Jinks, having discarded the drink, and straightened his coat and cravat when she was announced.

“The Viscountess Balfour, Captain.”

“Hello, Mother.” He kissed the soft satin of her cheek.

“Hello, darling. Thank you.”

“May I show you in?” He held his arm out toward the door of the study.

“Not up?” She glanced up the staircase in the general direction of the drawing room. “Still no chairs?”

“Nary a one.”

“Well,” she sighed, “I live in hope.”

He settled her into one of the leather chairs before the fire. She looked light and bright, and entirely out of place, an exotic, tropical bird with her beautiful white hair and her cheerful lavender gown and lace. Even nearing fifty she was still as elegant, graceful, and stylish as she had been in his youth, though the fine merino wool of her high-waisted gown couldn’t be much of a match for the chill she claimed made her feel arthritic. But she probably kept fires lit in every hearth at her elegant town house in Mayfair, unlike his inhospitable self. “May I offer you some refreshment?”

“Ah. Yes, please, tea would be lovely. Thank you.” She drew off her bonnet and shook the droplets of rain onto the hearth. “Such dreadful weather.”

“Now, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? Especially in such dreadful weather?”

“You needn’t take that tone. You sound like your father. I came to visit.”

“You came to meddle in my business and to tell me I ought to marry.”

“Gracious, no!” She frowned at him. “You’re hardly fit for civil drawing room conversation, let alone charming some poor girl into marriage. You’d make an absolute mess of it. Whatever put such a thought in your head?”

He couldn’t possibly answer her. He strove
not
to look at the ceiling.
Not
to think about who was up there, in a bed, just beyond the ceiling plaster.

When he didn’t answer she continued. “I’ve only come to see you. To see how you get on.”

“I get on just fine.”

“Yes, I can see that you do. You look stronger. More vital. Your limp has become hardly noticeable. It can only mean this hermetic life you’ve chosen does suit you.”

“Mother, I’m hardly a hermit.”

“All right,” she conceded with a smile, “this
private
life you’ve chosen. It seems to suit you. I’m glad. Though we hardly ever see you.”

He snorted.

“You know I only want to see you well and happy.”

“I know nothing of the kind.”

“Don’t be so contrary. It’s an unattractive habit. Terrible. Your father never could break himself of it. But you”—she bestowed upon him a warm, beatific smile—“are a better man. Self-disciplined and intelligent. You get that from me.”

“So I do.” Actually, he had gotten self-discipline, as well as most other forms of discipline, from the Royal Navy, but he didn’t argue with her. It would only prolong her visit. Not that he didn’t love her, or wasn’t secretly pleased by her call, but she was as curious and sly as a fox. Another ten minutes and she’d sniff out the girl asleep upstairs like a scent hound. “And
you
are too self-disciplined to have come here without a purpose.”

She bestowed a smile upon him as if he were still ten, and her pleasure was his reward for being so clever. “Just so. I am hosting a dinner party, and I find my numbers have come to an inconvenient and unlucky thirteen. I need you to put on your uniform and fill a chair.”

“Merely fill it? I won’t have to talk to unmarried, eligible girls?”

“A few, perhaps, but there will be only one you’ll have to speak to at any length, at dinner. But you needn’t worry—she won’t do for you at all. She’s a hearty country girl—your aunt Lucille’s niece on her husband’s side—and from what I understand, very managing. We’ll find a nice, befuddled vicar for her to marry and manage, but dear Balfour doesn’t want one at his dinner. A vicar, that is. Political people mostly, but Balfour asked for you especially. You know he admires you.”

He did know, but he hadn’t given any thought to turning his place as favorite stepson to his advantage. “ ‘Know how to keep your mouth shut at the right time,’ was, I believe, his opinion.”

“High praise, in his view. And he’s right. You do understand all these political subtleties, though I know you don’t care for them yourself. Nor do I. Intrigues.” She shook her head as if the machinations of the House of Lords were beyond her feeble, feminine abilities, when she was as shrewd as a vixen. That was probably why Viscount Balfour had married her. If there was another reason, he chose not to think about it. She was, after all, his mother.

“So you’ll come? It would be a very great favor to me, darling. And you aren’t doing anything but getting better, clearly. Look at all these books. You ought to get some help in. But what you really need is a quiet evening out, every now and again.”

What he needed was a not so quiet evening
in
. In bed, with the young lady upstairs, convincing her, he did understand more things than she ...

“Hugh? Are you quite all right?” His mother was peering at him in concern.

“Hardly a quiet evening, when I’ll have to pretend to listen attentively to some girl’s enthusiasm for the Briarly-St. Badgley church fete.”

His mother’s smile was somehow all the more charming when she tilted her head that way. It was like a secret weapon, that tilt. It made him ridiculously willing to please her.

“But there. No other young man would even
understand
the need to listen attentively to the planning of a village fete. You must come. I won’t take no for an answer. It’s this evening, of course, so set that disreputable valet of yours to brushing your blues and shining up all that gold braid.”

“If I wear my uniform, I’ll outshine your country girls in all their pale muslins.”

“But you’re not for the country girls, so it doesn’t signify. Wear the dress uniform.”

It was against naval custom for an officer who was not on duty to wear his uniform. His mother knew that. And yet she had insisted. It must mean her husband had heard of his success with Admiral Middleton. Clearly his family was burgeoning with spies of every sort. All the more reason for his mother to depart. “I’ll come.”