After a long pause, Linley asked softly, “Why do you give a damn what I think?”
Feeling trapped, Lydia stood and moved away from him, heading to the nearby racks that extended from floor to ceiling. She ran her finger across a row of wax-sealed corks and inspected the gray smudge of dust that accumulated on her fingertip. “I suppose I can’t resist trying to solve a puzzle,” she said eventually. “And I’ve never been able to figure out the source of the discord between you and I. It’s obvious to everyone that we’ve never gotten along. Is it because of my family’s origins? The fact that my father was born illegitimately, and his gaming club days—”
“No,” Linley said swiftly. “I would never hold that against him, or your family. I have nothing but admiration for your father and what he’s made of himself. And my family’s origins are no better than yours. As everyone knows, the Linleys are hardly a bunch of blue bloods.” He smiled darkly before continuing. “But as much as I esteem your father, there is no disputing that he’s also manipulative and domineering, and he’ll stop at nothing to get what he wants. And he also happens to be as rich as Croesus. In other words, Craven is the father-in-law from hell. Wray is completely cowed by him. Your father won’t hesitate to make your husband dance to whatever tune he plays…and no marriage can tolerate that kind of interference.”
“I won’t let Papa bully him,” Lydia said defensively.
Linley responded with a derisive snort. He half-sat on the table, one foot swinging idly. “Your husband needs the ballocks to stand up to Craven without your protection. And Wray doesn’t have them. Sooner or later, he’ll resent you for that, almost as much as you’ll resent him.”
Lydia would have given almost anything to be able to contradict him. “A man can change,” she said.
“Even if he does, that won’t alter the other pertinent fact.”
“Which is?”
The uncertain lamplight made his rumpled hair shine like antiqued gold, and gleamed on his smooth-shaven skin. “You don’t love each other.”
Lydia was unable to speak, her pulse racing wildly as he approached her. She wasn’t aware of backing away from him until she felt the wine rack against her shoulders and heard the rattle of bottles.
Moving closer, Linley braced his hands on either side of her, his fingers curling around the ironwork braces fashioned to hold the bottles in place. He stood much too close, his body towering over hers. Lydia’s nostrils were filled with his fragrance, the freshness of soap overlaying the warm, salty maleness of his skin. She took a deep breath, and another, but somehow her lungs wouldn’t seem to work properly. How strange it was, that until now she had never realized how big he was. She was above average height, and yet he loomed over her, his shoulders blocking out the frugal lamplight.
His fingers flexed on the ironwork. “You should marry a man who would sell his soul just to spend one night with you.”
“How do you know that Wray doesn’t feel that way about me?” she whispered.
“Because if he did, you wouldn’t be so damned innocent right now.” A flush crept over the crests of his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. “If you were mine, I never could have waited all these months without—”
He broke off and swallowed audibly, his breath striking her lips in light, hot puffs. As he leaned closer to her, she could almost feel the animal heat of his body.
Her thoughts scattered wildly as she realized that he was going to kiss her. She felt the heat of his hands close around the back of her head, cradling, supportive. His face lowered to hers until everything blurred, and she closed her eyes. There was a velvety brush against the corner of her mouth…another at the vulnerable center of the lower lip…. His mouth settled on hers by slow degrees until he had caught her in full, moist possession. Suddenly Lydia felt drunk, just like the time last Christmas when she’d had two large cups of rum punch and had spent the rest of the evening in a pleasant, knee-weakening fog.
She swayed dizzily and was immediately caught and held against the solid length of his body. He kissed her more deeply, nudging her lips apart so that he could taste her with gentle, urgent strokes. The pleasure of it shocked her. Her mouth opened feverishly beneath his, welcoming the hot, gliding insinuation of his tongue. He gave it to her slowly, making her writhe against him. Her fingers slid into his thick hair, pulling his head harder over hers, and a soft sound came from deep in his throat.
Abruptly he took his mouth from hers, gasping harshly. “Damn. I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.” His thumb passed tenderly over the pliable curve of her lower lip, and he stared at her with a flare of longing that astonished her. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I’ll let you go now. I…” His arms loosened, but he seemed unable to take them from around her. “God, Lydia,” he whispered hoarsely, and his head lowered again.
His mouth took hers compulsively, savoring her helpless response. Lydia felt his hands travel downward, one pressing her hips more tightly against his, while the other slid beneath the round weight of her breast, lifting it slightly. The heat of his fingers sank through the thick silk of her bodice. He stroked the stiffening peak with the pad of his thumb, circling lazily while he kissed her over and over, unlocking a need that frightened her with its intensity.
With a low whimper, Lydia wrenched herself away from him, somehow making her way to the wine table. She sat down hard in the chair, drawing in huge gulps of air, while her damp hands pressed flat to the worn surface of the table.
Jake remained by the wine racks, resting his forehead against a shelf. Finally he stepped back and dragged a hand roughly through his hair. Lydia saw the tremor in his fingers and heard the deep shiver in his breath. “I’ve got to get out of here,” he said gruffly. “I can’t be alone with you.”
Lydia waited until her heartbeat slowed before she attempted to speak. “Linley…Jake…what kind of game are you playing?”
“It’s not a game.” His pale eyes stared directly into hers. “I’ve wanted you since the first time I saw you.”
“But that can’t be true. I overheard you telling someone that you had no interest in me.”
“When?”
“The first day we met, after you’d bound my ankle.”
“You were only sixteen,” he replied sardonically. “I would have sounded like a depraved old lecher if I’d admitted to being attracted to you.”
“The night of my betrothal, when you kissed me…that was because you were attracted to me?”
“Why else would I have done so?”
Her cheeks burned at the memory. “I thought you were merely trying to embarrass me.”
“You thought—” Jake began with an incredulous look, then broke off abruptly. “Hell. You’re going to be married in two days. Is there any point in discussing it now?”
Lydia felt very odd, rather despairing and angry, as if she’d lost something she’d never had in the first place. As if she had somehow been cheated out of something. “You’re right,” she agreed slowly, “there is no point in discussing it now. Nothing would compel me to change my mind about marrying Lord Wray.”
Jake was silent at that, his eyes shadowed, the set of his mouth vaguely sullen.
“Wray and I are compatible in every way,” Lydia said, feeling the need to emphasize the point. “For one thing, he’s the only man who has read my paper for the Journal of Practical Science—”
“I read it,” he interrupted.
“You did?”
Linley smiled slightly as he saw her astonishment. “Only the first part.”
“What did you think of it?”
“I fell asleep during the part about congruent and disjoint tetrahydra.”
“Tetrahedra,” Lydia corrected with a slight smile, knowing that to someone other than a mathematician, her paper would have been dull indeed. “Well, I hope I provided a good night’s rest for you.”
“You did.”
She laughed, and they stared at each other for a moment of unexpected,
artless delight. Slowly Lydia relaxed against the back of the chair. “If you don’t like mathematics,” she said, “then what do you enjoy?”
“Fishing for trout. Reading newspapers in coffeehouses. Walking through London at dawn.” His gaze fell to her lips. “Kissing in wine cellars.”
She bit back a smile at the roguish comment.
“Tell me what you like,” he said.
“Billiards, and architecture, and watercoloring—even though I’m wretched at it. I also like playing cards, but only with my father, as he is the only one who can ever defeat me.” And also kissing in wine cellars, Lydia thought wryly. Standing, she rummaged through the cabinet beside the table, unearthing a corkscrew, a wax scraper, and a pair of tasting glasses. “I know something else you’ll like,” she said, gesturing with an empty glass to the rack nearest him. “Look to the right of the bottom row—the bottle with the gold and green label. A d’Yquem Sauterne…the nicest port you’ve ever tasted.”
Crouching to reach the bottle, Jake sent her a quizzical glance.
“We may as well,” she said. “Who knows how long we’ll be trapped down here? Sooner or later the under-butler will come to fetch more wine, but in the meantime we may as well make the best of things.”
Jake drew the bottle from the rack and brought it to the table. Expertly he ran the scraper around the seal of the cork, then reached for the transverse handle of the corkscrew. Lydia was mesmerized by the movements of his hands, so graceful and deft as he twisted the metal spiral into the cork and eased it from the glass throat of the bottle. Recalling the gentle skill with which those large hands had stroked her face and fondled her breast, Lydia felt a twinge of pleasure low in her stomach.
After pouring two glasses of the heavy, purplish-red liquid, Jake gave one to her, seeming to exert special care not to brush her fingers with his own. “To your wedding,” he said brusquely, and they clinked the glasses. As Lydia drank, the heady flavor of rare wine rolled over her tongue and trickled sweetly down her throat.
She resumed her seat in the chair, while Jake removed his coat and half-sat on the table. “What are you working on?” he asked, glancing at the paper she had left near her purse, with its peppering of mathematical symbols.
“I’m developing a set of formulae for a probability analysis machine. Some friends from the London Mechanical Museum are designing it, and they invited me to collaborate.”
“What would you do with it?”
“It could be used to calculate the outcomes of games of chance, or even for more serious purposes, such as military or economic strategy.” Lydia warmed to the subject as he listened attentively. “My friends—who are much more mechanically inclined than I—have devised a system that uses brass cogs to represent numbers and symbols. Of course, it will never be built, as it would require thousands of specialized parts, and it would take up an entire building.”
Jake seemed vastly entertained by the notion. “All this work for a hypothetical machine?”
“Are you going to make jest of me?” Lydia asked with raised brows.
Jake shook his head slowly, continuing to smile. “What a remarkable brain you have.” The comment did not sound mocking at all. In fact, his expression was admiring.
Lydia sipped at her port, trying to ignore the sight of the way his trousers pulled tautly over his muscular thighs. He was a resplendently masculine creature, a rake with soul-weary eyes. With no effort at all, she could stand and lean into the inviting space between his thighs and pull his head to hers. She wanted to kiss him again, to explore his delicious mouth, to feel his hands stroke her body. Instead she remained seated and gazed up at him with a gathering frown. She couldn’t help speculating on how many other women must have felt this same attraction to him.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“I am wondering if you are as much of a rake as they say you are.”
He considered the question carefully. “I’m not a paragon,” he admitted.
“You have a reputation for seducing women.”
Jake’s face was inscrutable, but she sensed the discomfort that her comments had caused him. He remained silent for so long that Lydia thought he wasn’t going to reply. However, he forced himself to meet her gaze and spoke stiffly.
“I’ve never seduced anyone. And I would never sleep with someone who had sought my professional services. But on occasion I do take what is offered to me.”
The cool, dark interior of the cellar enclosed them in a cocoon, insulating them from the outside world, where unmarried girls did not discuss indecent subjects with wicked rakes. Lydia knew that she would never again have the chance to talk intimately with the man who had plagued and fascinated her for so many years.
“Why?” she asked softly. “Because you’re lonely?”
He shook his head. “No, it’s not loneliness. It’s more of a need for…distraction.”
“Distraction from what?”
Jake could have deflected the question easily. Instead, he stared at her steadily, his eyes bleak. “Without false modesty, I’m very good at what I do—but in my profession, encountering death and pain is inevitable. At times it’s hell on earth, trying to help someone with a fatal wound or an incurable disease, having a husband beg me to save his wife, or a child asking me not to let his father die. Often in spite of my best efforts, I fail. I try to find the right words, to offer comfort, to give an explanation of why things happen…but there are no words.” His face was partially averted, but she saw a faint flush of color rise in his tanned cheek. “I remember the faces of every patient who has died under my care. And on the nights that I can’t stop thinking about them, I need something…someone…to help me forget. At least for a little while.” He glanced at her warily. “Lately it hasn’t worked so well.”
Lydia had never imagined that he would speak to her with such raw honesty. He had always seemed so eternally self-confident, so in-vulnerable.
“Why do you continue to be a doctor, if it causes you unhappiness?” she asked.
His throat tightened with a catch of laughter. “Because there are days when I manage to do the right things and help someone to survive in spite of all the odds. And sometimes I am called upon to deliver a baby, and as I look at the new life in my hands, I’m filled with hope.” He shook his head and stared at the wall as if he were gazing across a great distance. “I’ve seen miracles. Once in a while, heaven smiles on the people who need it most, and they receive the greatest gift of all—a second chance at life. And then I thank God that I’m a doctor, and I know I could never be anything else.”
Lydia stared at him with a stricken expression, while her heart seemed to contract with a peculiar, sweet pain.
Oh, no, she thought in a riot of confusion and panic.
In one scalding moment, all her smug complacency had been ripped away. She feared that she was in love with a man she had known for years…a man so familiar and yet so much a stranger.
Chapter 4
“Jake,” Lydia said unsteadily, “I want to ask a favor of you.”
His golden head lifted. “Yes?”
“Tell me the worst things about yourself. Be very honest—admit your worst faults, and make yourself sound as unappealing as possible.”
He let out a low, rich laugh. “That’s easy enough. But I’m not going to admit my faults without hearing about yours as well.”
“All right,” she said cautiously.
Jake took a sip of wine, his eyes narrowing slightly as he regarded her over the glass rim. “You first.”
Perched on the edge of the chair, Lydia held her own glass in both hands and pressed her knees together tightly. She gave a resolute nod. “To begin with, I am not socially adept. I don’t like to make small talk, I’m terrible at flirting, and I don’t like to dance.”
“Not even with Wray?”
Lydia shook her head with an awkward smile.
“Perhaps you just haven’t had the right partner,” Jake said softly.
The rhythm of her breathing changed as their gazes meshed intimately. “Why have you never asked me to dance?”
“Because I don’t trust myself to hold you in public.”
Lydia colored all over and took a huge gulp of wine. She struggled to bring her mind back to her original line of thought. “More faults…well, I’m too impatient with people, and I hate inactivity, and I am something of a know-all…”
“No,” he murmured with obviously manufactured surprise.
“Oh, yes,” she replied, smiling ruefully in response to his teasing. “I always think I know best. I can’t help it. And I hate to admit that I’m wrong. My family claims that I would argue with a lamppost.”
Jake grinned. “I like strong-willed women.”
“What about stubborn, unreasonable ones?” she asked with a self-deprecating grimace.
“Especially those, if they’re as beautiful as you.” He finished his wine and set the glass aside.
The compliment sent a ripple of pleasure through her. “Do you like to argue?” she asked breathlessly.
“No. But I like to make up afterward.” His gaze stole over her body in an indiscreet sweep. “My turn now. We already know about my scandalous past. I’ll also confess to a complete lack of ambition. I prefer to keep my life as un-complicated as possible. I have few needs, aside from a nice house in town, a good horse and the occasional trip abroad.”
Lydia found that difficult to absorb. How different he was from her beloved father, whose appetite to succeed and conquer was seemingly limitless. The ability to be content with what one had…was that a fault or a virtue?
“What if you came into a large inheritance?” she asked, throwing him a skeptical glance. “Would you really give it all away?”
“To the first charity or hospital I could find,” he said without hesitation.
“Oh.” Frowning, Lydia regarded the blunted points of her knees through the layers of her skirts. “I suppose that marrying an heiress would be out of the question for you, then.”