17. In Which Grace and Luke Reach an Impasse

At the end of the secret passage was a door, elaborately carved, with a brass knob in the shape of a hand.

“How did you know?” Luke asked Grace, voice low, because it felt like one ought to whisper.

“I solved the cipher,” she told him, taking the lamp. “The final book was his diary.”

She swung the door open, and walked in.

They were greeted by a sitting room with a writing desk, a bookshelf, and a seating area that tipped beyond comfortable into decadent. Piles of velvet pillows heaped on and around a lofty daybed flanked by sculptures of long-legged cranes. On a low table, an open box of smoking accoutrements— tobacco-burning pipes and strange, long-handled implements. The walls were hung with shadow boxes of insects that perfectly mimicked leaves, or flowers, or the eyes of owls. Alabaster statues of goddesses—Greek, Roman—lived in every corner. The ceiling was tasseled silk, like an exotic tent.

Grace was taking it all in with wide eyes. “My word,” she said, twirling slowly where she stood, her eyes falling on treasures everywhere her lamp illuminated. “All of Bexley Estate is Charlie. And yet ... this is the most Charlie place of all. To think of the conversations he would have had here, with those lucky few,” she murmured. “But he never got the chance.”

I t was terrible. Luke felt grateful that it, too, was in the box.

Luke noticed an ornate archway behind the seating area. Another room lay beyond, in darkness. He walked through, and Grace joined him with the lamp.

This room was smaller. The walls here were hung with layer upon layer of silk tapestry in deeply saturated colors. The effect was intensely luxurious, like swimming inside a pot of gems.

The centerpiece of the room was a four-poster bed covered in a wine silk counterpane. In one corner, a life-sized statue of a god wearing an ornate crown held a naked goddess in his lap, her legs around his hips, full breasts against him, head thrown back in ecstasy. Luke saw Grace take it in, then look away.

Grace set the lamp down, stooped to a metal chest, opened it, and peered in. She gave a surprised laugh, and shut it quickly. She was covering her mouth when she turned to face Luke. “I don’t know what all of those ... objects ... are, but I think they’re meant—I think they’re all for pleasure.”

Luke raised a brow. “Well. It is a secret bedroom after all.”

It was interesting to watch Grace grow flustered, and try to cover it. To watch her glance at him, then away, a certain heat now in her gaze.

And why wouldn’t she want to fall back onto what looked like the softest counterpane ever woven? Why wouldn’t she want Luke to give her pleasure here, in her last moments before she went home to marry that absolute waste of skin? That man who might legitimately be moronic enough to do anything with his nights besides lick every inch of her body till she was arched as a bow and begging for release?

All that vitality, potential, intelligence. All that capacity. They both knew it would go unmet, once she left this room.

Now, she picked the lamp up. “Well. I think we ought not to linger,” she said dryly.

And then, the light made something glint on the ceiling, and she raised the lamp higher and looked up. And gasped.

The ceiling was painted black, and decorated with innumerable tiny gold-leaf stars, clustered in the constellations of the night sky.

He could see the emotion move across her face. “Oh my,” she breathed. “I feel as though his ghost has been eavesdropping on us.” She looked at Luke, her eyes soft. “You know, he had a lover, in secret.”

Luke nodded. He recalled the day he realized it, years ago. On the ship. They had not revealed themselves, nor had he stumbled upon them in an embrace. He’d simply seen them standing side by side, not touching, peering at a map. And the care they had for one another was as obvious as the sun in the sky.

“Denton,” he said. She looked surprised. “To be clear, they were remarkably deft at keeping it private. So far as I’m aware, no one ever knew.”

“But you knew.”

He shrugged. “I saw it, between them.”

“Well, of course you did,” she said with an odd little smile. “You are ... you.”

The way she said it. Her voice glowing. Now, that was dangerous. To be delighted in by Grace Chetwood stirred something, like seeing a flash of light on the other side of a deep woods.

“I did my best not to let on that I knew,” he said, distracting himself with the carved vines on the bed poster. Best to keep the conversation moving. “It was not the sort of affair one conducts without caution. But in my observation ... the little things ... they were deeply in love.”

Grace exhaled. Nodded. “He spent all his time missing Philip, even when they were together, because he knew time would pass too quickly. When I read it ... I thought about you.”

He felt a peculiar weightlessness. Let the comment pass. Keep moving.

But ... hell. He badly wanted to know. “In what way?”

“When you said that we should not begin. As it would not be enough.”

He’d never been more certain he was correct. “Yes, I said it. I meant it.”

A smile played on her lips. “Yet this morning, you grabbed me by the hair to pull me atop you.”

What could he do but laugh? “There is theory, and there is reality.”

She nodded. Then, cautiously, she asked, “And now?”

Crucial to keep a boot on the lid of the box.

At the same time, the impulse to sate the desire he saw in her—to take care of it —flared strongly. And, in fact, it felt safer to place all his attention on her, to give to her, to serve her, than it did to stay here under her too-searching eyes. He could make those eyes slip shut. He could turn all her curiosity inward.

And he could leave her satisfied. He liked the idea of this. A proper goodbye. But one that could allow him to walk away intact. With another scented kerchief in pocket, perhaps, he thought, amused now. Yes. It was a good plan.

“Here’s what I’m contemplating, princess.” She startled at the word. In a pleased way, he thought. “We can leave now, while our wits are about us. Or, you can come here,” he let his voice drop low, “and ask me to make you come one more time. One last time.”

Her eyes widened. She hesitated.

He took in the responses as he would in the field. The way she swallowed hard. The way she inhaled, wet her lip with the tip of her tongue. Nervous, aroused.

Now, she closed the distance. But it seemed she did it to peer more closely at him. “Luke ... you seem ... ” She sounded uncertain. “I cannot read it. I cannot read you .”

He reached out, to her hair. And pulled out a sparkling pin. “Is my behavior confusing?”

“No. But ... ” She seemed to be struggling with how to put it.

He pulled out the next pin, and the next, and the next, and in another moment, all that copper tumbled free. And then he buried his fingers in it, fingertips massaging her scalp. She narrowed her eyes, fighting the pleasure of it.

Then, she gave in. Leaned in to kiss him.

Too much risk in that. And so, he slipped around her, behind her, and pulled her back against his chest. His mouth found the side of her neck, his hands reeling her skirts up with an efficiency that made her gasp.

He brushed her ear with his lips, and she made a little sound in her throat, like a kitten. His hand reached her cunt. He dragged two fingers along her sex, opening her, discovering her silky and hot and already wet. “Oh, you poor, lovely thing,” he teased. “Does it ache?”

Her laugh was tight, a hitch. “Badly. For you.”

Hearing that caused a rush of sensation directly to his cock. “Not to worry,” he hummed, dipping those two fingers inside her, eliciting a moan. “I’ll take care of it. I know precisely how you like to be serviced.”

“Outrageously overconfident,” she scolded on a breathy laugh.

“Only a man who pays attention.” He drew a finger over her clitoris, and she shuddered.

“I want .. .” She swallowed. “I want you to disrobe, lie down on that bed, and let me touch you.”

“I am occupied,” he murmured, rubbing her more firmly, now.

She bit back another moan. And then, with a growl of effort, pulled herself away from him. “You are distracting m e. I won’t have it.” She smoothed down her skirt with unsteady hands. “You misapprehend what would satisfy me. ”

He raised a brow. “I recollect you melting into the floor last time I followed my instinct.”

“Oh, thoroughly. But can you, a man who pleaded to put his tongue inside me, not imagine I would have a desire to place mine upon you? Yet I have been given no opportunity .”

He did not wish to have this debate. Instead of replying, he kept her gaze, raised to his lips the glistening fingers that had been inside her, and sucked them into his mouth.

The taste made him want to get on his knees. He knew she could read it in his expression.

“L uke ... ” Her voice was husky. “Tell me how in God’s name I am meant to be reasonable when I watch you do that?”

“You need not be. Go lie on the bed. Or the floor, if you prefer.”

“Are we at war, then, over who lies down?” She shook her head. “I know what you’re about.”

He raised a brow. “Did not think I had made a secret of it.”

Her eyes flicked to his breeches, and back. “You’re hard.”

“Of course.”

“Let me take care of it.”

“It’ll keep.”

Now, her frustration was sharper. “No.” She stepped back. “I’m not certain why you won’t let me, or why you...why you do that .” She took a breath, searching for words to express it. “Coax me out of myself, but put up a—a barricade, to keep me from doing the same to you. If you cannot trust me enough to put yourself in my hands, I am profoundly disinterested in anything else.”

Luke’s first impulse was to say something cutting, to pull her away from the line of inquiry. But that would be a shameful way to end. And so, he was left with saying nothing at all.

“Luke ... ” she hissed a sigh. “I would know you. I would learn you. Not for fairness, though it would be only fair, but because that is what I want. Real knowledge, something beyond the fact that you’re awfully good at locking a great deal of yourself away.”

He was practically stone, now. He had to be.

“Do you suppose Charlie should never have touched Philip, because they could not be together always? Would it be better not to have given one another what they could?”

“What’s between us is not the same,” he said calmly. Was that true? He had no idea. But he did know it was time to release her from the hope that she could convince him. “They were in love for years. We’ve known each other only a short time, and spent most of it in battle. It’s only passion, Grace.”

She looked surprised, then furious. “That is idiotic. I think the truth is that you would hang from a cliff to catch a viper, but you are afraid of me.”

He tried for a look that said she was being ridiculous. But it was difficult to lie.

“I hate that I must go.” A painful sharpness to her tone, now. “That I did not do it all differently two years ago. I hate that you did not do it differently. It should have been you.”

Despite all his work to keep some emotional distance, her words caused a deep, clear ache. He could practically see it—a crack, down the center of the box.

No .

“It would never have been me, princess.” Now, the term wasn’t an endearment.

“You sound terribly certain—”

“I was there . You were pretty, and spoiled, and wealthy lords found you easy to convince.” Good God , that had come out harshly. Her eyes snapped wide, like she’d been struck. He felt immediate regret.

And in the next instant, he knew this was for the best. Puncturing the fantasy. Slapping her hand away, hard enough that they—he—could escape in one piece. “Do you imagine you’d have gone to your father, to your gossip-mongering friends, and declared that you wished to be courted by an author whose funds would not keep you in slippers?”

“Don’t,” she whispered.

“You romanticize what we could have been. Bexley’s heart stopping out of the cloudless blue forced you near a man you never stooped to dance a single dance with, for long enough to understand what it is to be treated as more than an ornament. But do not fool yourself, you would have chosen to be some posh imbecile’s trophy, every time. That was the game you were playing, and I could not possibly compete. I could have kissed you in every alcove in London, I could have proven a hundred ways that I see every depth of you, and even so our story would have ended with Randolph St. George owning you.”

The look on her face was pure, stunned injury.

For the best, Luke thought, ignoring the queasy feeling blooming in his stomach.

“Perhaps,” she finally said. “You’ve taken such impressive care to wound me, and that feels— that hurts. But the words don’t hurt, Luke. I know I was spoiled and frivolous and giddy on all the attention. I know I treated the season as a silly game. But unlike you, I am capable of learning. For instance, I have learned that we do not dwell in a fair world.” She shook her head, angry now. “God, the arrogance of you. None of us is guaranteed a whit of happiness in life. When it floats into our hand for a breath, we ought to let ourselves feel it. For whatever time it lasts.”

Disappointment was etched on her face. She turned to go.

But then, she had a thought that made her grimace, and turned back to add, “I could say the same of you, you know. I could prove a thousand ways that I see you, and you would never let me inside those rarefied walls. You only gave me any glimpse at all because I am already betrothed, and you knew I would leave as soon as the museum was open.” Her eyes were wet, but her voice was level. “I do not doubt that all sorts of people will love you from afar throughout your life, Luke. I only wonder if you will ever allow yourself to feel it, or if you will always be a coward. Take the lamp on your way out, if you would. It’s very dark.”

And she turned and left the room.