Chapter 16

ACCUSED MURDERESS UNDER INVESTIGATION. I am pleased to report that a constable was spotted outside Lord Lowell’s residence, where Lady Allen has recently taken up visiting. We must hope London’s finest have seen the error of their ways and Lady Allen will come to justice at last.

Olivia clenched her fingers on Thel’s arm as they strolled up the stone path to the house where she had once lived. A house which now belonged to her late husband’s cousin, the new Earl of Allen. She’d only met the man once, briefly, although he’d been kind enough to send a letter before he’d left to travel the Continent, informing her that she could visit the house whenever she wished.

She remembered dancing across the brown-and-white tiles in the entryway beneath the twinkling, silver chandelier, with the earl following behind. That innocent girl would never have expected she would become a prisoner in her own home, that she would spend countless evenings peering out her foggy, hexagonal bedroom windows, wishing she were anywhere else.

“It is only a house,” Thel said.

He was right, but that did little to ease the ache that had started in the back of her throat. It was as if all the screams she had swallowed throughout her marriage were clamoring to escape now that the earl was not present to take pleasure in her pain.

She lifted one trembling leg and then another until she was standing in front of the old, oak door with its rusty hinges and carving of a phoenix in flight. She had always hated that bird, with its crooked beak and sightless, black eyes.

Thel smoothed a hand down her back. “Are you ready?”

She took a deep breath, then nodded.

He turned the knob and pushed. The door opened on a long creak, revealing a dimly lit interior. All of the furnishings in the foyer were covered in white sheets, and there were squares of dark patches on the walls where paintings had once rested. Where the gardens and facade had been painfully familiar, there was little she recognized inside the house.

An elderly servant in a blue tweed jacket rose from his place on a chair beneath the staircase and squinted at her. “Lady Allen?”

“Boris!” She rushed forward to greet the man who had been her only ally in a home that had sapped every ounce of life from her. “I suppose I should not be surprised to see you here. Did the new earl keep you on as butler?”

She’d wanted to ask Boris to come work for her after the funeral, but he’d been employed by her late husband’s family for decades.

The old man rubbed his long beard. “That he did, my lady, although I think it was more out of convenience than tradition. Two days after the funeral, he walked through the house once, dismissed half the staff, and departed for France. But now you are here! The earl left instructions that you were to be welcome whenever you wished.”

She did not have the heart to tell him she would not be visiting again. If she’d harbored any hope of convincing Boris to leave with her, she would have offered him a position in her household, but the man was far too loyal. She thanked Boris, then took Thel’s hand and led him to the stairs.

Her feet moved without her bidding them. How many times had she walked down the hallway, practicing the perfect stroll, checking her face in the mirrors to confirm not a hint of what she felt shone through? The earl had encouraged this in his own way. When she showed a rare smile or hearty laugh, he would apologize for his “energetic” wife. That was when he was not calling her “youthful” and “na?ve.”

“My lady, you should stay out of that room,” a young voice said.

She turned to see a maid twisting her apron in her hands.

“What’s your name?” Olivia asked.

The girl bobbed a curtsey. “Willow, my lady. I was a maid here before you left. This room… It hasn’t been prepared. It wouldn’t be right for you to see it in such condition until we…” She gulped. “Until we gave it a proper cleaning.”

“The condition of the room does not matter, as I’m not here to stay. This is no longer my home, Willow.”

“Have you come—is there something you seek?” The quick glances Willow shot at Thel suggested there was more going on, but Olivia did not have a frame of reference to determine what it might be.

“Is something the matter?”

The maid clutched her apron in both hands, then spoke so quickly that Olivia almost didn’t make out the words. “We didn’t think you would mind, milady, seeing as all your possessions were moved after the old earl died, and we knew the dress wasn’t yours, so Delilah sewed up the cuts in the gold chiffon and fixed the fine lace and found a buyer in the shops in Whitechapel and sold it. Begging your pardon, but the money is long gone.”

Olivia shook her head. “I didn’t leave any gowns behind.”

Willow’s gaze dropped to the floor. “I know, milady. It was the other lady. She wore it whenever she visited.”

“What other lady?” she asked, but then she knew. It should not have come as a surprise. The earl had treated her no better than a possession. Of course, he had sought his pleasure with another woman.

She had come to the house determined to learn where her nemesis was getting information, but now it was obvious. It was not a member of her staff at all, but her former husband’s mistress.

She forced her attention back to Willow. The girl was speaking even faster and with such a high-pitched voice that Olivia feared she was on the verge of faint.

“…swore us to silence, and even after he died, we feared his old ghost would haunt the place.”

“You aren’t in trouble, Willow,” she said. “Can you tell me more about…” She had to force the words out. “This woman. What did she look like?”

Thel might have called her masochistic for delving so deep into the earl’s sins, but any woman who’d willingly come to the earl’s bed had to have been lacking in both self-preservation and morality. Exactly the kind of woman who would be amenable to bribes.

Willow ducked her head. “I wish I could tell you more, but the previous earl was very careful when his mistress was concerned. I think he didn’t like us knowing what he was up to. I only ever caught glimpses of her.”

She looked so anxious that Olivia felt compelled to smile. “You can return to your duties, Willow.”

As the girl hurried away, Thel threaded his fingers through hers and squeezed. “Do you feel this woman is important?”

“Yes.”

The earl had taken pleasure in sharing the secrets he had extracted out of his acquaintances with her, especially when said information made her uncomfortable. He had once gleefully informed her that Lady Cowper had been beaten by her husband so badly that she could not exit her house without wearing a veil.

If he had continued the practice of sharing secrets with his mistress, then the lady was likely in possession of many unpleasant facts.

Facts Mr. Dawson could use against me.

But how were Mr. Dawson and her husband’s mistress connected? Her first thought was they were lovers, although she had to admit her own history guided her in that direction. It was equally possible that they were related or were strangers who had formed a partnership to enact revenge against her. She still didn’t know what she had done to elicit Mr. Dawson’s anger, but she could easily imagine the earl’s mistress resenting the wife of her deceased lover. “Are you certain you wish to do this?” Thel asked. “You might find the past holds answers to questions you did not ask.”

“I have to know,” she said. “It’s the only way we’ll get to the truth.”

He released her. “If that is what you want. How do we find this woman?”

Olivia chewed on her thumbnail through her glove. “The earl was careful with the staff. He wouldn’t have allowed any of them to overhear the manner of things that have come to light in the articles. Except…” There was only one person the earl had consistently treated with respect. The oldest servant in their employ. “Boris.”

Thel frowned. “That old man?”

“He’s worked for my late husband’s family for decades. He often said he helped raise the previous earl.”

“You think he might have seen something?”

Before he had finished his sentence, she was flying down the steps, her heart thudding in her chest. “Boris!”

He was back in his chair, although there was a new black cane clenched in his hands. “Yes, my lady?”

She knelt before him. “Do you remember how you would bring food to my room?”

He tapped his cane on the tile. “My memory is not that bad, my lady. You were a wee thing, barely more than skin and bones. The previous earl did wrong by you.”

“Yes, of course, but on those nights, did a woman come to the house?”

Boris’s expression glazed over. “A woman… Yes, there was a woman. I told the daft boy he was getting himself into trouble, having an affair with a married lady, but he was never one to listen to sense. The same as his father, that boy.”

Olivia felt as if someone had punched her in the gut. It was bad enough that her husband had sought the company of another, but she had assumed his liaisons had been with actresses or ballerinas or maybe even ladies of the night, not a woman of her own class.

“You are certain she was a lady?” Thel asked.

Boris’s eyebrows drew together. “I only saw her once in passing, my lord, but she must have been a lady, because she was with Miss Trenton. That viper of a woman would not have associated with anyone of lower class.”

“Trenton,” Olivia said, drawing out the word. “I know that name.” Then it came to her, and she groaned. “Mrs. Zephyr was Miss Trenton before she married.”

She would have more luck getting a tiger to come placidly to her hand than convincing that woman to help her identify the former earl’s mistress. She had come so far, torn open long-healed wounds, all for nothing.

It was too much. She wanted out of the house, away from the memories that choked her on every corner. The earl had never truly left, only hid in the recesses of her mind. She could hear his distant shouting, feel his lips upon her breast, taste the alcohol on his breath when he’d forced his tongue into her mouth.

She balled her hands into fists. The earl would not win.

She dragged Thel back upstairs and into the bedroom that had been her prison during her marriage, then slammed and locked the door behind them.

“What are you doing?” Thel asked.

She knelt over to unlace her boot. “Facing my demons.”

She removed her other boot, then walked to the bed and flipped up the velvet-lined loops the earl had once used to make her debase herself, furthering his pleasure from her humiliation.

“Are those…?” Thel trailed off. “They are. My God.”

She still had nightmares about using the loops. It infuriated her that the earl continued to affect her after his death. If she was ever to be free of him, she had to confront her memories head-on and reclaim what he had taken from her.

She stuck her wrists in the loops and tightened them as best she could. There was enough slack that her arms were not stretched taut. If she scooted down on the bed, she could lie with her arms slightly above her head.

“Lash my ankles,” she said.

Thel stared at her for so long, she worried he had not heard, but then he flipped the loops from beneath the mattress and closed them around her ankles, pulling them until she had a few inches of movement.

“What now?” Thel asked.

“Blindfold me with your cravat.”

Thel jerked off his neckcloth and held it in his hands. “Are you sure?”

She wasn’t, but she had to do something. She couldn’t allow the earl to haunt her every waking hour.

“I need this, Thel. It’s the only way I’ll be able to forget what happened here.”

He crawled across the bed and draped the fabric over her face, then tied it behind her head. It wasn’t enough to obscure her vision, but being unable to see made her more attuned to the sounds in the room. She felt the dip of the bed as he crawled onto it.

Her heart raced. The anticipation was as sweet as any kiss. She wanted to be entirely filled with him, with his tongue and his fingers and his cock.

When his chilled fingers touched her ankle, she jerked. But he only caressed her foot, then took her big toe in his mouth and sucked. A jolt of lust shot through her. He lifted her skirts and trailed kisses to her quim, then peeled her apart layer by layer. He rasped her clitoris, curling his tongue around it in a movement that had her hips rocking.

“More,” Olivia whispered.

He pressed his fingers between her nether lips and pierced her in one swift movement. She rocked her hips with the rapid thrust of his fingers, riding him until she was lathered in sweat.

“Take me, Thel,” she said. “Claim me.”

His fingers vanished, and she cried out for need of him, but then something broad and smooth pressed between her thighs. She nudged as far down as she could, but he remained tantalizingly against her entrance.

He pushed in a fraction, just enough for him to feel his fullness entering her, stretching her tight. She squirmed on his cock, trying to take more of him, but he held her hips down onto the bed and slid in another fraction.

He was so big. He stretched her more than any man ever had, inch by tortuous inch, until he lifted her hips and pulled her the rest of the way. She tried to wrap her legs around his waist, but they snagged on the restraints.

She wanted him to move, to take her until she could think of nothing else. Instead, he drew himself back as slowly as he had entered her. When he was nearly out, he plunged back in. She thrashed her head back and forth, panting. She loved having him so deep. Being at his mercy.

“Please,” she said.

He filled her so deep, and she could do nothing but take it as pinned as she was. She clung to the sensation of him inside her, tightening the muscles in her abdomen to make the sensation that much sweeter. Still, it was not enough.

“What do you need?” he whispered.

Tension coiled in her abdomen but would not come free. It happened sometimes, when her mind was not engaged, like she was floating above herself rather than inside her body.

“Use your mouth,” she said.

Her sex dampened as he pressed gentle kisses along her clavicle. His beard rubbed against her sensitive flesh and made her back arch. He tugged the top of her gown and her corset down and touched his lips to her nipple through her shift, then drew back on a gasp.

“Yes, it’s what you think,” she said. “They are even more sensitive this way.”

Thel probed her with his tongue, exploring one of the many holes pierced through her anatomy. It was one of the few wounds the earl had given her she was not ashamed of.

There were several interesting things one could do with bosom rings and chains that enhanced pleasure.

She looked forward to introducing Thel to all of them.

At last, she unwound around him with a sigh, the pleasure coursing up her back and curling in her belly.

###

Thel’s vision went white as Olivia’s sheath fluttered around his cock. He had intended to hold on to his release, but the evidence of her pleasure tipped him over the edge. He thrust deep and spent himself, then rode the waves of pleasure along with her.

Several minutes later, he slipped out of her and untied her restraints. She immediately curled against him, laying her head on his chest and splaying one leg across his hips.

“That was…remarkable,” he said.

Her laugh was hardly more than a soft exhalation. “My dear marquess, we have only begun.”

He was grateful. While they continued in their pursuits, she remained in his orbit. He felt more confident than ever that he had been given a second chance at love, and he would not let it pass him by. After what they’d done, she might become pregnant with his heir. There was only one logical path forward.

He wrapped his arms around her. “We could spend every morning like this.”

She snorted. “I do have my own household, Thel. After this matter of the articles is resolved, I will have a life to return to. It would be rather difficult to maintain a social presence if I am always traveling between your house and mine.”

He splayed his hand on her stomach. “That was not precisely what I had in mind.”

“Then what?”

“You could be my wife.”

She squirmed out of bed, taking the blanket with her. “Are you in love with me?”

He could not see her face or read her intentions from her tone. It left him scrambling. “Marriages have been established on shakier ground. We are compatible. We enjoy each other’s company.” He slid off the bed and wrapped his arms around her. “It would be a logical choice.”

She stiffened again. He mentally cursed. It was so difficult to figure out her mood.

“Logic,” she said. “You are right. It would be logical to marry you.”

His heart soared. She agreed with him. He had not ruined his chances after all.

“I decline,” she said.

His heart dropped into his stomach. “Why?”

###

Olivia’s face felt hot, and tears burned in her eyes.

Logic.

A man who was dedicated to love, and he had chosen to woo her with the least romantic method available. She did not know why that mattered to her, but it did.

She could not help but wonder if he was hiding the true reason for his interest in her. The earl had wrapped her up in so many delusions that she’d given him everything. She was older and wiser, but the innocent girl still lived within her and had some sway over her actions. Was it Olivia or Lady Allen who was drawn to Thel? Did he truly love her, or did he simply wish for a woman to bear him an heir? If so, he would be disappointed to learn of the barren state of her womb.

No. Until she was certain of him, she could not risk anything more than a physical relationship. She searched for an excuse and clung to the first one she found.

“We still don’t know why Mr. Dawson is after me, or how far he will go to ruin my reputation.”

She turned, and the despondent look on his face almost undid her. She wanted to rush into his arms and promise him whatever he wanted. Her loyalty to him was already that strong. But that was what she would have done for the earl. Changed herself to suit his needs. She could not do that again.

“I don’t care about your reputation,” Thel said.

“I won’t have people thinking I tricked you into marriage.”

Thel ran a hand through his hair. “If that is what it takes.” He gave her a lopsided grin. “You can be assured that when this matter is settled, I will ask again. At that time, I hope you will say ‘yes.’”

She bit the inside of her cheek. The earl had never offered to do something for her unless it was clear she’d been expected to do something first to earn his devotion. She forced her emotions aside and focused on a matter that did not make her heart ache. “As for Constance, I believe the next event we should attend is Lord and Lady Wintermoor’s masquerade tomorrow night.”

He paused in the process of donning his trousers. “I have been to Lord and Lady Wintermoor’s parties, Olivia. You will not find any acceptable suitors for Constance there.”

“You cannot keep her locked up forever. The masquerade will give her something to focus on besides Mr. Dawson.”

She would not tell him she had arranged for his daughter to sneak off with Mr. Dawson and test his resolve. The same part of her that urged her to test him insisted that if he was like her former husband, he would become angry at her for deceiving him.

It was foolish, given that Thel had displayed no signs of overwhelming affection or suffocating possession toward her, but it would not exit her mind. She would test him, as Constance was testing her unknown suitor. Once she was sure that he was not cut from the same cloth as the earl, then she would reveal everything.