The day was improving rapidly. “Who doesn’t?”
Catherine occupied the chair by the bedside. “He meanders a bit too much for my taste. I prefer novels with more plot.”
“But with Balzac,” Leo said, “you have to give yourself over fully. You have to wallow and roll in the language…” Pausing, he looked more closely at her small oval face. She was pale, and there were shadows beneath her eyes, no doubt as a result of having visited him so many times in the night. “You look tired,” he said bluntly. “On my account. Forgive me.”
“Oh, not at all, it wasn’t you. I had nightmares.”
“What about?”
Her expression turned guarded. Forbidden territory. And yet Leo couldn’t help pressing. “Are the nightmares about your past? About whatever situation it was that Rutledge found you in?”
Drawing in a sharp breath, Catherine stood, looking stunned and slightly ill. “Perhaps I should go.”
“No,” Leo said quickly, making a staying gesture with his hand. “Don’t leave. I need company—I’m still suffering the aftereffects of the laudanum that you convinced me to take.” Seeing her continuing hesitation, he added, “And I have a fever.”
“A mild one.”
“Hang it, Marks, you’re a companion,” he said with a scowl. “Do your job, will you?”
She looked indignant for a moment, and then a laugh burst out despite her efforts to hold it in. “I’m Beatrix’s companion,” she said. “Not yours.”
“Today you’re mine. Sit and start reading.”
To Leo’s surprise, the masterful approach actually worked. Catherine resumed her seat and opened the book to the first page. She used the tip of a forefinger to push her spectacles into place—a meticulous little gesture that he adored. “Un Homme d’Affaires,” she read. “A Man of Business. Chapter one.”
“Wait.”
Catherine glanced at him expectantly.
Leo chose his words with care. “Is there any part of your past that you would be willing to discuss?”
“For what purpose?”
“I’m curious about you.”
“I don’t like to talk about myself.”
“You see, that’s proof of how interesting you are. There’s nothing more tedious than people who like to talk about themselves. I’m a perfect example.”
She looked down at the book as if she were trying very hard to concentrate on the page. But after just a few seconds, she looked up with a grin that seemed to dissolve his spine. “You are many things, my lord. But tedious is not one of them.”
As Leo gazed at her, he felt the same inexplicable flourish of warmth, of happiness, that he’d experienced yesterday, before their mishap at the ruins.
“What would you like to know?” Catherine asked.
“When did you first learn that you needed spectacles?”
“I was five or six. My parents and I lived in Holborn, in a tenement at Portpool Lane. Since girls couldn’t go to school at the time, a local woman tried to teach a few of us. She told my mother that I was very good at memorization, but I was slow-witted when it came to reading and writing. One day my mother sent me on an errand to fetch a parcel from the butcher. It was only two streets away, but I got lost. Everything was a blur. I was found wandering and crying a few streets away, until finally someone led me to the butcher’s shop.” A smile curved her lips. “What a kind man he was. When I told him I didn’t think I could find my way home, he said he had an idea. And he had me try on his wife’s spectacles. I couldn’t believe how the world looked. Magical. I could see the pattern of bricks on walls, and birds in the air, and even the weave of the butcher’s apron. That was my problem, he said. I just hadn’t been able to see. And ever since then I’ve worn spectacles.”
“Were your parents relieved to discover their daughter wasn’t slow-witted after all?”
“Quite the opposite. They argued for days about which side of the family my weak eyes had come from. My mother was quite distressed, as she said spectacles would mar my appearance.”
“What rot.”
She looked rueful. “My mother did not possess what one would call a great depth of character.”
“In light of her actions—abandoning a husband and son, running to England with her lover—I wouldn’t have expected a surfeit of principles.”
“I thought they were married, when I was a child,” she said.
“Was there love between them?”
Considering that, she chewed her lower lip, drawing his attention to the enticing softness of her mouth. “They were attracted to each other in a physical sense,” she admitted. “But that’s not love, is it?”
“No,” he said softly. “What happened to your father?”
“I’d rather not discuss that.”
“After all I’ve confided in you?” He gave her a chiding glance. “Be fair, Marks. It can’t be any more difficult for you than it was for me.”
“All right.” Catherine took a deep breath. “When my mother fell ill, my father felt it as a great burden. He paid a woman to look after her until the end, and sent me away to live with my aunt and grandmother, and I never heard from him again. He may be dead, for all I know.”
“I’m sorry,” Leo said. And he was. Genuinely sorry, wishing he could somehow have gone back in time to comfort a small girl in spectacles, who had been abandoned by the man who should have protected her. “Not all men are like that,” he felt the need to point out.
“I know. It would hardly be fair of me to blame the entire male population for my father’s sins.”
Leo became uncomfortably aware that his own behavior hadn’t been any better than her father’s, that he had indulged in his own bitter grief to the point of abandoning his sisters. “No wonder you’ve always hated me,” he said. “I must remind you of him. I deserted my sisters when they needed me.”
Catherine gave him a clear-eyed stare, not pitying, not censorious, just … appraising. “No,” she said sincerely. “You’re not at all like him. You came back to your family. You’ve worked for them, cared for them. And I’ve never hated you.”
Leo stared at her closely, more than a little surprised by the revelation. “You haven’t?”
“No. In fact—” She broke off abruptly.
“In fact?” Leo prompted. “What were you going to say?”
“Nothing.”
“You were. Something along the lines of liking me against your will.”
“Certainly not,” Catherine said primly, but Leo saw the twitch of a smile at her lips.
“Irresistibly attracted by my dashing good looks?” he suggested. “My fascinating conversation?”
“No, and no.”
“Seduced by my brooding glances?” He accompanied this with a waggish swerving of his brows that finally reduced her to laughter.
“Yes, it must have been those.”
Settling back against the pillows, Leo regarded her with satisfaction.
What a wonderful laugh she had, light and throaty, as if she had been drinking champagne.
And what a problem this could become, this madly inappropriate desire for her. She was becoming real to him, dimensional, vulnerable in ways he had never imagined.
As Catherine read aloud, the ferret emerged from beneath the dresser and climbed onto her lap. He fell asleep in an upside-down circle, his mouth open. Leo didn’t blame Dodger in the slightest. Catherine’s lap looked like a lovely place to rest one’s head.
Leo feigned interest in the complex and detailed narrative, while his mind occupied itself with the question of what she would look like naked. It seemed tragic that he would never see her so. But even by Leo’s dilapidated code of ethics, a man did not take a virgin unless he had serious intentions. He had tried it once, letting himself fall madly in love, nearly losing everything as a result.
And there were some risks a man couldn’t take twice.
Chapter Ten
It was past midnight. Catherine woke to the sound o
f a baby’s whimpering. Little Rye was teething, and the usually sweet-natured cherub had been fretful of late.
Catherine stared sightlessly in the darkness, kicked the bed linens away from her legs, and tried to find a more comfortable position in which to sleep. Her side. Her stomach. Nothing felt right.
After a few minutes, the baby’s crying stopped. No doubt he was being soothed by his attentive mother.
But Catherine was left awake. Lonely, aching. The worst kind of awake.
She tried to occupy herself with old Celtic sheep-counting words, still used by rural farmers in place of modern numbers … yan, tan, tethera, pethera … One could hear the echo of centuries in the ancient syllables. Sethera, methera, hovera, covera …
Her mind summoned an image of singular blue eyes, striated light and dark, like strips of sky and ocean. Leo had watched her while she had read to him, and while she had done the mending. And underneath their banter, and his relaxed façade, she had known that he wanted her. Yan, tan, tethera …
Perhaps Leo was awake at this very moment. His fever had dissipated earlier in the evening, but it might have rekindled. He might need water. A cool cloth.
Catherine left the bed and snatched up her dressing robe before she could think twice. Finding her spectacles on the dressing table, she placed them precisely on her nose.
Her bare feet crossed the wood floors of the hallway as she went on her charitable mission.
The door to his room was partially open. She slipped in without a sound, like a thief, tiptoeing to the bed just as she had the previous night. The darkness of the room was penetrated by a few runnels of light from the open window, as if the shadows were a sieve. She could hear the soft and steady flow of Leo’s breathing.
Making her way to his side, Catherine reached out tentatively, her heartbeat thickening as she laid her fingers on his forehead. No fever. Only smooth, healthy warmth.
Leo’s breathing fractured as he awakened. “Cat?” His voice was sleep-thickened. “What are you doing?”
She shouldn’t have gone to him. Any excuse she gave would sound false and ridiculous, because there was no rational reason to have bothered him.
Awkwardly she mumbled, “I … I came to see if…” Her voice died away.
She began to draw back but he caught her wrist with remarkable dexterity, considering that it was night and he was barely awake. They both went still as she was caught poised over him, her wrist imprisoned in his grip.
Leo exerted tension on her arm, forcing her to lean farther over him, farther, until her balance was compromised and she fell on him in a slow topple. Terrified of hurting him, she scrabbled to brace her hands on the mattress, and he used every movement to lever her more fully onto his body. She started as she encountered bare flesh tightly knit with muscle, his chest covered with a soft, crisp fleece.
“My lord,” she whispered, “I didn’t—”
His long hand curved around the back of her head, and he brought her mouth down to his.
It wasn’t a kiss, it was a possession. He took her fully, the heat of his tongue thrusting inside her, draining her of volition and thought. The masculine incense of his skin filled her nostrils. Erotic. Delicious. Too many sensations to take in at once … the hot silk of his mouth, the assured grip of his hands, the hard masculine contours of his body.
The world revolved slowly as Leo turned with her in his arms, half pinning her to the bed. His kisses were rough and sweet, kisses involving lips and teeth and tongue. Gasping, she reached around his neck and bandaged shoulder. He moved over her, big and dark, kissing her as if he wanted to devour her.
The folds of her dressing gown listed open, the hem of her nightgown rising to her knees. Leo’s mouth broke from hers to begin a luscious search of her throat, following tender nerve paths down to the place where her neck and shoulder met. His fingers worked at the front of her nightgown, unmooring tiny buttons, spreading the thin fabric.
His head lowered, his lips slowly ascending the trembling slope of her breast until he reached the tip. Taking her into his mouth, he warmed the cool bud with lambent strokes of his tongue. Ragged moans rose in her throat, mingling with the gusts of his breath. Leo settled more heavily between her thighs, giving her his weight until she felt the hard length of him press her intimately. He sought her other breast, closing his mouth over the peak and tugging wetly, creating waves of involuting pleasure.
With every movement, more sensation was uncovered, the soft edges of arousal wearing away to exquisite rawness. Leo took her mouth with long, drugging kisses, while lower down he had begun a subtle rhythm, nudging and sliding, using himself to arouse her. She twisted beneath him, desperately trying to follow that teasing hardness. Their bodies pressed together like the pages of a closed book, and it felt so right, so wildly pleasurable, that it frightened her.
“No,” she gasped, pushing at him. “Wait. Please—”
One of her hands pressed heedlessly against his injured shoulder, and Leo rolled off her with a curse.
“My lord?” She scrambled from the bed and stood there, shaking in every limb. “I’m sorry. Did I hurt you? What can I—”
“Go.”
“Yes, but—”
“Now, Marks.” His voice was low and guttural. “Or else come back to bed, and let me finish.”
She fled.
Chapter Eleven
After a wretched night, Catherine fumbled for her spectacles and realized she had lost them sometime during her visit to Leo’s room. Groaning, she sat at her dressing table and buried her face in her hands.
A stupid impulse, she thought dully. A moment of madness. She should never have given in to it.
There was no one to blame but herself.
What remarkable ammunition she had given to Leo. He would torture her with this. He would take every opportunity to humiliate her. She knew him well enough not to doubt it.
Catherine’s ill humor was not helped by the appearance of Dodger, who emerged from the slipper box by her bed. The ferret pushed the lid open with his head, clucked in cheerful greeting, and tugged her slipper out of the box. Heaven knew where he intended to take it.
“Stop that, Dodger,” she said wearily, laying her head on her arms as she watched him.
Everything was blurry. She needed her spectacles. And it was awfully difficult to go looking for something when you couldn’t see more than two feet in front of your face. Moreover, if one of the housemaids found the spectacles in Leo’s room, or God help her, in his bed, everyone would find out.
Abandoning the slipper, Dodger trotted to her and stood tall, bracing his long, slender body against her knee. He was shivering, which Beatrix had told her was normal for ferrets. A ferret’s temperature lowered when he was sleeping, and shivering was his way of warming himself upon awakening. Catherine reached down to stroke him. When he tried to climb into her lap, however, she nudged him away. “I don’t feel well,” she told the ferret woefully, although there was nothing wrong with her physically.
Chattering in annoyance at her rejection, Dodger turned and streaked out of the room.
Catherine continued to lie with her head on the table, feeling too dreary and ashamed to move.
She had slept late. She could hear the sounds of footsteps and muffled conversation coming from the lower floors. Had Leo gone down to breakfast?
She couldn’t possibly face him.
Her mind returned to those blistering minutes of the previous night. A fresh swell of desire rolled through her as she thought of the way he had kissed her, the feel of his mouth on the intimate places of her body.
She heard the ferret come back into the room again, chuckling and hopping as he did whenever he was especially pleased about something. “Go away, Dodger,” she said dully.
But he persisted, coming to her side and standing tall again, his body a long cylinder. Glancing at him, Catherine saw that something was clamped carefully in his front teeth. She blinked. Slowly she reached down and took the o
bject from him.
Her spectacles.
Amazing, how much better a small gesture of kindness could make one feel.
“Thank you,” she whispered, tears coming to her eyes as she stroked his tiny head. “I do love you, you disgusting weasel.”
Climbing onto her lap, Dodger flipped upside down and sighed.
Catherine dressed with painstaking care, putting extra pins in her hair, tying the sash of her gray dress a bit tighter than usual, even double-knotting the laces of her sensible ankle boots. As if she could contain herself so thoroughly that nothing could stray loose. Not even her thoughts.
Entering the breakfast room, she saw Amelia at the table. She was feeding toast to baby Rye, who was gumming it and drooling copiously.
“Good morning,” Catherine murmured, going to pour a cup of tea at the samovar. “Poor little Rye … I heard him cry in the night. The new tooth hasn’t come yet?”
“Not yet,” Amelia said ruefully. “I’m sorry he disturbed your sleep, Catherine.”
“Oh, he didn’t bother me. I was already awake. It was a restless night.”
“It must have been for Lord Ramsay as well,” Amelia remarked.
Catherine glanced at her quickly, but thankfully there seemed to be no arch meaning in the comment. She tried to keep her expression neutral. “Oh? I hope he is well this morning.”
“He seems well enough, but he’s unusually quiet. Preoccupied.” Amelia made a face. “I suppose it didn’t improve his disposition when I told him that we are planning to hold the ball in one month’s time.”
Stirring sugar into her tea with great care, Catherine asked, “Will you tell people that the event is for the purpose of finding a bride for Lord Ramsay?”
Amelia grinned. “No, even I am not that indelicate. However, it will be obvious that a great many eligible young women have been invited. And of course, my brother is a prime matrimonial target.”
“I’m sure I don’t know why,” Catherine muttered, trying to sound offhand, when inside she was filled with despair.
She realized she would not be able to stay with the Hathaway family if or when Leo married. She literally wouldn’t be able to bear the sight of him with another woman. Especially if she made him happy.