Chapter 7

W hen Opal’s governess reported her charge missing again, Glain knew precisely where to locate her sister.

After the day and a half of planning a tedious dinner party for the duke’s latest, most important guest, Glain welcomed the opportunity of escape. And if she were being honest with herself, she relished coming to the Chetham’s Subscription Library again.

And seeing him… A voice taunted at the back of her mind.

For yes, she could be honest with herself in that. She’d wanted to see him . She…liked Mr. Abaddon Grimoire.

It wouldn’t make sense to most, but it made all the sense in the world to her.

She liked how he didn’t treat her with deference and unfailing politeness for the simple reason of her birthright as a duke’s daughter.

She liked that he challenged her, both in the form of his questioning and in the books he’d helped select for Glain that would expand her mind and view of the world.

She appreciated that he was honest when even the smiles of the people in the world she’d been born to were false.

Nothing, however, could have prepared her for the sight of Abaddon as he was now, laughing and conversing with her sister.

Every other word of her enthusiastic sister’s chatter drifted over…

“…and Emily is always crying…but I don’t dislike her for it…because…”

On the other hand, Abaddon’s deep baritone was so low as to be hushed and largely lost to Glain so that she only heard the occasional question posed. “…how does the author use…?”

“Oh, well, I think it is very clear,” Opal said matter-of-factly. “Everything about the setting is ominous. The buildings are soaring. The passageways dark and mysterious and…”

Abaddon leaned in towards Glain’s sister, and Glain found herself leaning forward, too, in a bid to hear whatever he’d say next.

Only, she couldn’t, and she mourned the loss of all the words he spoke.

For she also knew he didn’t speak with the same judgment and condescension Glain’s own father had shown about the books he’d found her with. And she knew for the simple reasons that Abaddon posed questions about the book they discussed, and her sister answered with ease and relaxedness. Nay, this was no condescending lecture.

He sat there so comfortably at a tiny round oak table entirely too small for his six feet, four-inch physique, chatting comfortably with a young girl about books that fascinated her. Nor did Abaddon judge Opal for her interests or seek to steer her to books that were safer topics and considered more suitable for a young lady. Rather, they conversed freely, animatedly, over a handful of leather volumes, and whatever questions he posed had Opal chattering like a magpie. Her cheeks bright. Her eyes sparkling as they’d never been at home.

And God help Glain, in that moment she fell more than a little in love with Abaddon Grimoire.

In a world, where noblemen—fathers, older brothers, and husbands—didn’t have the time or inclination to bother with their daughters, sisters, and wives, Abaddon saw them.

Not just women, a young girl.

Her eyes slid shut under the powerful wave of emotion that crested within her breast.

As a child, Glain herself had been even more invisible than she was now. Her father certainly hadn’t a use for her. She’d not even minded so much. She’d simply thought that was the way of the world and had instead relished every moment spent with her free-spirted, loving mother. Then her mother had died giving birth to Flint, and Glain had become a solitary, lonely child, grateful for the brother and sister.

Two children whom the duke also hadn’t given a jot about beyond the fact he’d at last had an heir.

Glain opened her eyes, once more taking in the sight of Abaddon and Opal.

Her sister’s lips moved a mile a moment. Her cheeks were flushed with happy color.

Glain’s throat worked under the force of emotion.

She fell in love with him for being a man who not only didn’t seek to restrict a girl’s or woman’s growth, but who treated them as equals in every way.

She fell in love with him for not thinking himself too important to bother with a girl.

It hardly mattered that he’d proven harsh and unforgiving in his opinion of Glain herself. After all, he wasn’t wrong. He saw what the world saw and made the assumption she’d wanted the world to make—that she was some duke’s privileged, pampered daughter. And not interested in being more than that.

Oh, how she wished though that he saw…her.

He’d given her those books.

He’d read her and rightly deduced that she both needed and wanted books that would challenge her and more, ones that would make her challenge the existing order.

“Glain!” Opal’s happy shout filtered around the room.

Glain cringed at having been caught watching them.

Abaddon slid an inscrutable look her way, and she tried to make something out of that piercing gaze.

Wood scraped loudly upon wood, as Opal shoved back her chair, hopped to her feet, and raced over to join Glain. “I am ever so happy you came, after all!” She threw herself at Glain and nearly knocked them both off balance with that hug.

Some great shift had occurred between her and her sister. What had changed?

Stiffening, Glain awkwardly returned that half-embrace, feeling Abaddon’s eyes upon them still.

“You can’t keep rushing off without an escort, poppet,” she gently chided, stroking the top of her sister’s head in the same manner her mother had Glain’s. Her sister, however, had never known their mother. “It’s not safe.”

“Mr. Grim will ensure no harm befalls me.”

“Yes, I believe that.” Glain lifted her gaze from her sister and looked to Abaddon. His opaque gaze revealed nothing of his inner thoughts. Unnerved by the unswerving intensity of those cobalt irises, she glanced down at Opal once more. “However, anything could happen to you on your way to and from the library.”

“It won’t,” Opal said in an instant, with all the confidence only a child who’d remained untouched by the pain and suffering of life knew. And this, here, was alternately Glain’s greatest accomplishment and her greatest failing.

Glain met Abaddon’s gaze once more. “Wait for me in the carriage, Opal,” she quietly directed.

And surprise of greatest surprises, Opal gathered up her books, held them to her chest, and with her head down, headed for the door.

The tinny belly jingled and Glain’s maid waiting there escorted the recalcitrant girl from the library, closing the door behind them with a quiet click, leaving Glain and Abaddon alone.

She tensed, bracing for the barrage of insults and a verbal affront from him.

“Nothing to say?” she asked, angling her chin up a fraction.

“You came back.”

“To claim my sister.” And because she’d wanted to come.

“You wanted to come,” he predicted, his slightly graveled murmuring entrancing for the coarseness of it—tones that made him very real, in ways she’d never known men could be real, and it unsteadied her.

Glain fought her way through the dazed sensation in her head. She glanced down at the open book, and to give her shaking fingers a purpose, she picked up the small volume, turned it over to read the title. “And I see you have my sister reading more of these horror stories .” I want to read them…I want to read these stories, too … a voice in her head silently wept.

“We had an agreement,” she said sharply, setting the copy down hard and quickly. It hit the tabletop with a soft thump. “Do you always fail to honor your pledges, Abaddon?” She wanted a fight. Spoiled for one.

Only he didn’t comply.

Rather, his powerful gaze remained vague, impossible to make anything out of.

“The way I see it, your failure to honor the terms we’d set allowed me some greater freedoms on my end,” he said quietly.

Glain bit the inside of her cheek. Where was Abaddon’s vitriol? Why wasn’t he coldly mocking or jeering this time?

The fight went out of her. “Thank you for being patient with her,” she said. Unable to meet his eyes, Glain trained her gaze just beyond his shoulder. And me…thank you for being patient with me . Those, however, were the words she couldn’t bring herself to speak, deserved though, they may be.

Abaddon inclined his head. “You don’t need to thank me for that. She’s a clever girl, with a head for learning, and a strength of character that will serve her well in life.”

And it was certainly just one of Glain’s many failings that she found herself envying her sister for the praise heaped upon her by this man.

“She is,” she murmured, and there was a small amount of self-pride there, too. For all the ways in which Glain was a shadow of a person, she’d managed to protect her sister far longer than anyone had protected her.

“She’s like you,” Abaddon said, yanking her back from her musings, and a laugh exploded from her lips before she registered the somber set to his harsh, angular features.

Glain peered at his face. “You’re serious.” Surely not. Only, she didn’t take him as one who jested freely.

“Deadly so,” he said. “You’ve not been afraid to go toe-to-toe with me.”

She dampened her mouth. “I wanted to return,” she found herself confiding, knowing she should be horrified. “I just…had other obligations I was required to see to.”

“I know.”

He knew? Warmth spiraled through her whole being. Why was he being so nice?

“Here.” He reached behind him and then slid closer, and her breath hitched as he extended a hand.

Cold leather penetrated her palms that in her haste she’d failed to cover with gloves.

She read the title, and relief so palpable, so beautiful and lifelike and strong slammed into her. The force of those emotions rolling together weighted her eyes shut.

Her father had burned them.

“You have another copy,” she said, her voice clogged and thick with something that felt very much like tears. Which was of course, impossible. She didn’t cry. And certainly not with relief, and certainly not over books.

“No,” he murmured, grazing a finger down the curve of her cheek, the callused pad of his two middle fingers a seductive caress that obliterated all possibility of rational thought, as she felt only that ragged little brush. It brought her eyes weighted shut, and muddled her thoughts and her senses, so that she could only feel…and think of the kiss she’d known in this very room. “That’s the one I gave you.”

It took a moment for that handful of murmured words to penetrate the haze his quixotic touch had wrought, and then it did.

…That’s the one I gave you…

As in the copy. As in…

“Your sister rescued it,” he confirmed.

Rescued it. Which meant…

Glain’s entire body tensed, and her eyes came flying open, and she at last registered the look in his. The glimmer she’d taken as desire, she now saw for what it really was.

Oh, God.

Pity. It radiated from his eyes, searing her in a different way, and she recoiled, retreating from that sentiment, and for her startling lapse in composure and control of her senses. “I don’t need your pity, sir,” she hissed, swatting the hand reaching towards her once more.

“I don’t pity you.”

“ Liar .

“I understand you more, Glain,” he murmured, striding over, and she realized she’d backed away from him, and he slowly edged out that space. Not threatening, but also direct.

“I’m not some complex puzzle, Mr. Grimoire,” she said tightly, between clenched teeth. “I’m not a scientific study for you to try and make sense of.”

“I’ve never been one for puzzles,” he murmured. “But I somehow seem to make all number of exceptions where you’re concerned, darling.”

Darling.

That endearment rolled together with his words knocked loose the remainder of the argument on her lips, and it flew from her head.

She was just a woman. But no one had seen that. Not before him. And likely never again, after.

Her lips trembled. “Here, now,” he murmured, tracing the pad of his thumb along that quivering flesh.

Glain’s breath caught. The earth stopped spinning, and yet she found herself dizzy like she’d spun in a thousand fast-moving circles, dazed by that soft, mesmerizing touch.

He let his arm fall, and she silently, secretly cried out for the loss.

Only, he did not retreat.

His gaze lingered on the flesh he’d so gently stroked with his finger.

He was so close, his mouth so near hers, all she need do was stretch up on tiptoe and their lips would meet.

She trailed the tip of her tongue over that flesh which prickled with the memory of the feel of that first…and last…kiss.

Abaddon leaned down slowly, allowing her to move, to flee, to retreat, but God help her she couldn’t. Nor did she wish to. Her lids grew heavy, as she stretched up, towards him, towards the kiss she craved.

And then their lips touched. Her breathy moan mingled with his low, guttural groan. That sound rumbled within his chest, and moved through her and once again, she surrendered herself to this man’s embrace.

He slanted his mouth over hers with an ardency of one who wished to devour her, and she matched him hunger for hunger.

Gripping the front of his soft wool jacket to keep herself steady, she pulled him nearer.

With the pad of the same thumb that first kindled the flames of her desire, he pressed along the curve of her jaw, delicately prodding, wordlessly urging her to open for him, and Glain did. She let her lips part and let him inside, and whimpered the instant his tongue touched hers.

He tasted faintly of mint and honey—an unexpectedly sweet taste for a man so hard and powerful—and it liquefied her. She lashed her tongue against his, swirling her flesh around his, in a bid to consume him and that sweetness.

Abaddon sank his fingers into her hips, kneading the flesh, then slipped his palms under her buttocks, cupping her.

The life drained from her limbs and she went weak in the knees, but he simply caught her, and edged her back, guiding her to rest on the edge of the small oak table.

Of their own volition, her legs slipped open, the fabric of her dress crunching in a shamefully hedonistic rustle that should have recalled where she was and stopped her. Instead, she found the ache between her legs throbbed all the more, and she was incapable of centering herself on anything other than that ache that was both terrible and wonderful all at the same time.

Abaddon gently nipped at her tongue. He was a primitive beast marking her, and she returned that light bite in kind.

He growled his approval, and Glain thrilled at it—and in this, a powerful awareness of her femininity. She reveled in her desire and in this glorious man’s hunger for her. In a world where people disdained her, looking upon her as the aloof, frosty figure she’d deliberately fashioned herself into, Abaddon saw a woman capable of passion and desire.

He palmed her breasts, and a low moan spilled from her lips that sound lost to his kiss, before he drew his mouth away.

She whimpered at the loss, but he merely shifted his attentions, touching his lips to the shell of her ear, flicking that flesh with the tip of his tongue then moving onward in his quest.

He placed his lips against her neck, touching them to the place where her pulse pounded for him and his embrace.

Abaddon lightly suckled and nipped at that spot, and on a shuddery sigh, she tangled her fingers in his unfashionably long, black, strands and held him close.

She’d never believed she was capable of this because she had come to see in herself what the whole world did. Only to find, she was capable of great emotion and fire and burning, and that she wanted all of it.

She wanted to live life as fully as this embrace. She wanted to know love and passion and—

And she never could.

Glain wrenched back, recoiling from that truth and this embrace she ached to continue. She wept inside and railed at the impossibility of what she’d wanted.

“Stop,” she rasped, and even as he instantly ended that kiss, Glain shoved him.

Despite her ineffectual push against his broad, powerful physique, he straightened so very casually…as if they’d not just been making love with their mouths, and took several steps away from her.

Glain jumped up. Her skirts fell noisily about her ankles and to give her hands something to do, to give herself a purposeful task so she didn’t have to meet Abaddon’s eyes, she frantically patted at the front of her dress.

The bell at the front of the library jingled announcing a patron, and Glain lifted a frantic stare to Abaddon, needing him to retreat lest they be seen standing so closely together. Yet, with the speed of a London pickpocket who’d filched her reticule outside the theatre one night, years earlier, Abaddon had already moved.

Glain kept her head down and headed for the door.

“My lady,” Abaddon called. “You’re not going to want to forget your book.” He pointed to the volume she’d thought her father had burned, the one Opal rescued and returned.

And the only reason she grabbed it was so the dark-eyed patron now giving her a curious look didn’t wonder at her empty hands.

Throwing her shoulders back and tilting her chin, Glain marched from the library with her head held high and not a single word more for Abaddon Grimoire.