Fascinated Read online

  The garden of Hartwell House was large, and laid out with old-fashioned geometry, and the roses were indeed blooming. Verity did not make any effort to pay attention to them. Instead, she marched straight ahead, her eyes flitting this way and that as if she expected an ambush. This was not what he expected from one of the very correct, very disapproving Hartwells. They were a thin, gray sort of family who lived in a strange air of either resignation or boredom, all except the three aunts, and Verity.

  As soon as they’d rounded a neatly trimmed box hedge, Verity turned and faced him.

  “I want your word.” Verity folded her arms. “Your word as a gentleman that you will take proper care of Alicia.”

  Carstairs folded his own arms, mirroring the girl’s defiant stance. The truth was, Carstairs wasn’t sure whether to be amused or insulted by her. But he was definitely surprised, and intrigued. “And who are you to demand any promise from a man not your relation?”

  “I’m the only person in this family who has ever cared about Alicia.” Verity stepped closer to him, her face tilted up to meet his. Carstairs, more than a little shocked, received the distinct impression she was spoiling for a fight. “And I swear, if you hurt her or neglect her in any fashion, I’ll murder you.”

  Carstairs’s urge to laugh at this bit of drama lasted only for a moment. There was genuine determination beneath Verity’s overwrought words. “Why?” he asked.

  “Why what?”

  “Why should you care about her? If, as you say, no one else in this family does?”

  That took Verity aback. “Because…because she’s Alicia. Because she’s had more difficulties than the rest of us, and no one even tries to help her.”

  “How so?” Aunt Mary might not be willing to talk about more than the weather, but this girl was plainly bursting at the seams for someone to confide in.

  For the first time, though, uncertainty crept into Verity’s manner. “I shouldn’t have spoken. I’ve probably ruined everything.” But there was something else in the back of her dark eyes. It tugged urgently at Carstairs’s attention. He needed to keep her talking.

  “Please. Tell me what you know. I want to understand.”

  Verity cocked her head toward him, studying him carefully. “You know, I believe you mean that.” She took a deep breath, looking at her hands, the sky, at anywhere but him. Carstairs forced himself to be patient. Whatever the girl had to say, it was not coming easily to her. A sudden sense of familiarity was growing in him as he stood with her. He would be able to give it a name in a moment.

  “Alicia was kidnapped when she was a little girl,” Verity whispered.

  “Kidnapped?”

  Verity nodded. “She and her parents lived in Northumbria, and she was kidnapped by highwaymen on the Scottish border. They held her for weeks. The family got her back, though. There must have been a ransom paid, but no one talks about it. Alicia swears she doesn’t remember anything that happened. But…her father was killed during the affair and her mother died of fever shortly afterward, and no one talks about that, either.” Verity sucked in a deep breath. “I think…I think something happened to her because of it all, the kidnapping and her father’s death. She’s not…normal, you see. She doesn’t feel things the way people usually do. She says it’s a deformity of her character, but I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?” Carstairs forced his voice to remain calm and steady. He could not let Verity know how very badly her words shook him. Look at me, he urged her silently. Look at me, Verity Hartwell.

  But Verity didn’t look at him. She looked instead at her own fingers, which were knotting themselves together, and for a moment she very much resembled her aunt Mary. “If I tell you, you’ll think I’m a silly girl.”

  “I promise you, Miss Verity. Apart from Alicia herself, I think you may be the most sensible person in this family.”

  Verity took a long time deciding whether to believe this. But, to Carstairs’s relief, she at last began to speak. “It’s just a feeling. I’ve never understood it, but when I’m with her, I always feel like there’s another Alicia underneath the one I see. It’s as if she’s trapped somehow…” She faltered again, and Carstairs realized he’d stepped toward her, and reached out a hand. He retreated hastily before she could become truly alarmed.

  “Verity,” he said. “Thank you for this. I believe you are entirely correct, although in ways you may not be able to imagine, at least not yet.”

  “You’re taking me seriously?” She searched his face for any trace of mockery. “No one ever takes me seriously.”

  “I do. And what’s more, I promise you I always will. In fact, I think you and I must have some more conversation in the very near future.” Because you, Verity Hartwell, are a Catalyst, and you need to know about it. “Tell me, has Alicia ever spoken of having strange dreams? Or perhaps seen things and people no one else has?”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  “I see.” Carstairs let out a deep breath, his mind racing, but to no purpose. He could not change course now. He must play this through, and take whatever came. “We need to get back before your aunts come looking for us,” he said aloud. “But, please believe me, I will care for Alicia as best I can. You have my word as a gentleman.”

  “Thank you, Lord Carstairs.”

  Aware he was being reckless, Carstairs decided to trust Verity a little further. He needed some cover for the rest of his day’s scheme, and Verity could provide it. “Before we return, or one of your inestimable aunts arrives, I have a favor to ask. I’ve come to invite Alicia to take a carriage ride with me. Of course, we must be chaperoned, and I intend to ask you to go along. Once we’re in the park, I need you to invent some excuse to leave us alone. Can you do that?”

  Verity frowned up at him. Carstairs let her study him, although he felt his patience champing at the bit. Come, come, Verity, you know you can trust me. You can feel we are of a kind, you and I.

  “Yes,” Verity said slowly. “I think I could manage.”

  “I will be in your debt. Let us go back. Alicia will surely be there by now, and I think we should spare her as much of Aunt Mary’s company as possible, don’t you?”

  Verity laughed. “I think I’m going to like having you as my cousin, sir!”

  Carstairs permitted himself a smile. “I hope so, Miss Verity. I very much hope so.”

  Five

  It was, Alicia had to admit, a perfect day for a carriage ride. Verity, for reasons Alicia could not quite make out, had insisted the parlor maid Margery accompany them all, and Margery seemed to be enjoying the treat as much as Verity. Lord Carstairs drove the phaeton himself, keeping his matched bay horses to an easy, even sedate, pace, while his man rode behind. As they turned into the park, the warmth and green of summer enfolded them. It was not the fashionable hour, but the road was crowded nonetheless, and Verity was kept busy happily nodding to acquaintances as the other carriages passed by. But Alicia could not relax. She found herself staring at Lord Carstairs’s back, watching the play of muscle under his close-cut coat as he handled the reins. It was as if she were seeking to discern some secret from the broad expanse of his shoulders. But there was nothing. How could there be? It was, in the end, only a pair of man’s shoulders. So, why couldn’t she look away? It was dangerous to stare, or to think too much on this man. She was sure of that. Look what thinking about him had gotten her already…

  There it was again. Something about last night. Something she almost remembered, but that skittered away.

  Nothing was made any easier by the way Verity kept giving her sly, sideways glances.

  Eventually, Lord Carstairs reined the carriage to a halt under the shade of a spreading oak and turned to his passengers. “Ladies, it’s a very fine morning. What would you say to a stroll across the green?”

  “That sounds lovely,” announced Verity before Alicia could formulate her own answer. Verity had an unusual tilt to the smile she leveled at Lord Carstairs, and Alicia felt something
unfamiliar twist inside her. The twist was not loosened at all by both Lord Carstairs and Verity turning deferentially toward her.

  “A walk would be most pleasant,” Alicia agreed.

  “Excellent.” Lord Carstairs smiled as he helped first her and then Verity down from the carriage. Did his gaze linger a little longer on Verity? No, it was not possible. He was engaged to her—Alicia. He would not be looking at her cousin.

  Her younger, prettier, sweeter cousin.

  When Lord Carstairs very properly offered his arm to her, Alicia remembered to put on a smile as she accepted. Leaving Margery with the phaeton and her sewing, they all three set off across the expanse of rolling meadow. Lord Carstairs did not seem inclined to make small talk, and Alicia was just as content to walk in silence. It would give all her unfamiliar discomforts time to recede.

  But after a few moments, Verity staggered and exclaimed, “Oh! Ow!”

  “What is it, Verity?” Alicia asked.

  “Oh, it’s these slippers. They’ve always been too tight.” The frown Verity directed at the blue tips of her shoes looked startlingly like one of Aunt Eugenia’s. “I wouldn’t have worn them if I’d realized we were going walking.”

  “Perhaps we should return…” Alicia hesitated, looking up at Lord Carstairs. This walk was his idea; she should be deferring to him.

  But Verity was already shaking her head. “Oh, no, no, I don’t want to spoil your morning. I’ll wait with Margery in the carriage. You go on.”

  Go on. With only Edward for company. If thinking on him too much was dangerous, then how much worse would walking alone with him be? And there I am thinking of him as Edward again.

  “If you’re certain, Miss Verity,” Edward was saying. “We can all go back to the carriage and continue our drive.”

  “I’ll be fine.” Verity smiled. “I had Margery slip a book into her bag for me. It will be a treat to have some time to read without Aunt Eugenia fussing that I’ll spoil my looks hunching over some dusty old tome. Really.”

  “She does do that, you know,” said Alicia. Perhaps there was nothing wrong. Perhaps everything was exactly as it should be, and it was only bride’s nerves that troubled her.

  “Very well, then,” replied Lord Carstairs gravely. “Your maid and my man will look after you, Miss Verity. Shall we continue, Miss Hartwell?”

  Alicia accepted Edward’s arm once more and let him lead her away. She glanced back just once to see Verity had almost reached the carriage. She walked quite steadily for someone who had just complained her shoes hurt so badly. What was she playing at?

  “Your cousin seems very fond of you,” remarked Edward.

  “I’d be lost without her,” Alicia replied. “I hope…I hope you’ll allow her to visit us once we are married.”

  “I expect we will continue to see a great deal of Verity. And as to visitors, you will be entirely free to choose your own company.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Or to refuse it,” Edward added.

  Alicia thought of Aunt Mary, and Aunt Eugenia, and, lastly and most reluctantly, of Aunt Hester. What freedom it would be to be able to refuse to see them should she choose. “Thank you,” she said again.

  “I think you are selective with regard to company, a private person. Rather like myself, in fact.”

  “You don’t find…you don’t find that unusual in a woman?”

  “Perhaps it is unusual, but that does not mean there’s anything wrong in it.”

  “Not many share your view.”

  “That also does not mean there’s anything wrong in it.” He turned a smile toward her, and Alicia felt her brow furrow. He seemed so at ease with himself, it brought out an informality in her that she was quite unused to. She certainly had never spoken like this with anyone, not even Verity. But she could feel Edward’s assurance like the sunlight against her skin. She wanted nothing more than to turn her face toward it, toward him. She wanted to talk deeply and seriously with him. She wanted to truly understand this man beside her. It was a dangerous desire. If she came to know him, he might just as easily come to know her, and all her debilities. He could still call off the marriage. The contract wouldn’t matter, because her uncles would never escalate a scandal by suing for breach of promise. Worry swelled Alicia’s throat, tightening her skin against her white ribbon.

  Fortunately Edward seemed in no way impatient to break their mutual silence. They walked past the groves and along to the sunny banks of the Serpentine. Alicia had let Edward direct their path, until she realized the sound of the wind in the trees overhead had become louder than any sound of voices or carriages. In fact, they were quite alone beside the sparkling water.

  “I was hoping to continue our conversation from yesterday evening,” said Edward at last.

  “Which conversation, my lord?”

  “Edward, Alicia,” he corrected her with a smile. “We are once again alone.”

  “Edward,” she repeated. She’d been thinking of him by his Christian name for some time now, but it still felt strange to say out loud. “What conversation is that?”

  He frowned. “The conversation we left in your aunt’s music room.”

  Oh, no. “I’m sorry. Did we speak in the music room?”

  “You really don’t remember?”

  So, she had forgotten something, and it had involved Edward. What would he think of her now? Alicia wished desperately that Verity had stayed with them. Verity had a great deal of practice covering her lapses.

  “I’m sorry,” Alicia said in what she hoped was a bright tone. “There was so much happening last night, I’m afraid some details have escaped me.”

  “You truly do not remember? The conservatory? Our…acquaintances Julian and Melissa?”

  “I…” Alicia tried to think, but she couldn’t. The memory had been taken away off into the mists.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.” I’m mad. You have tried hard to be kind and you do not deserve a mad wife.

  “Don’t be sorry.” Gently, Edward put his finger under her chin and lifted her face toward his. A shiver ran through her. Memory struggled to reach the surface, to reach out for the touch of his warm, strong hand. “Come, Alicia. You look pale. Let me take you out of the sun.”

  His smile was tight, and there was something not right in it. Fear fitted itself around Alicia’s confusion. “I am well, truly.”

  “Indulge me. Just a moment in the shade.”

  With one hand on her shoulder, he steered her deeper into the grove. Trees and bracken closed about them, until it seemed as if they were in the deep woods rather than just a park in the teeming city. The air was fresher here, and the shade did feel calming after the warmth of the sun. Alicia began to relax.

  But that relaxation was shattered by the high, distinct sound of a girlish giggle.

  “You’re a bold minx, Freda,” said a man’s voice.

  Her heart rising to her throat, Alicia turned to her right, toward the voices. Through the screening trees, she saw a man and a woman. The woman had a spill of auburn curls piled high on her head, and she wore a dress of sprigged muslin trimmed with blue ribbons. The man was older, but strongly built, with ginger hair and a square jaw. He was plainly dressed in a blue coat and buff breeches. He smiled wickedly at the woman as he wrapped his arms around her curving waist. The woman, Freda, came laughing to his embrace, and plainly willing. In fact, she rubbed her generous breasts against his broad chest.

  “And you love me for it, don’t you, Marcus?” she cried merrily.

  “Now and always.” The man—Marcus—grasped Freda’s face in his hands, pulling her onto her toes so he could kiss her. Freda did not resist in the least. The opposite, in fact. She grabbed hold of Marcus’s buttocks to press his buckskin-clad hips tightly against her. While he plundered her mouth, she ground their hips together, moaning into the kiss. Slowly, Marcus bent his knees, lowering them both to the ground without once breaking the kiss.

  “Oh,” w
hispered Alicia. “Oh.”

  Edward was behind her. She couldn’t see him, but she could feel him, warm and near. Her breasts swelled against the bodice of her dress and her light, summer pelisse.

  The pair in front of them parted, panting hard for breath and grinning devilishly at each other. Freda pushed her lover backward so that he fell against a tree trunk, his face awash with delight at this rough play. She reared up on her knees and reached to adjust the neckline of her dress, tugging and smoothing it over the lush curves of her breasts. All the while she eyed the bulging crotch of Marcus’s breeches. Alicia looked there too. She wanted to see what lay beneath. Wanted it so much, indeed, she could barely breathe.

  Edward reached his arms around her, and his hands found her bonnet ribbons. With a single tug, he loosened her bow, and then with slow and infinite care, he drew out her hat pin. The bonnet tumbled away onto the grass, and Alicia let it fall.

  Marcus settled farther back against the tree trunk, spreading his legs wide. “You want it so much, my dear, you’d better take it.”

  “I do believe I will.” Heedless of the ruin she’d be making of her skirts, Freda crawled forward between Marcus’s legs. He stared greedily at the cleft of her breasts as she came toward him on hands and knees. When Freda was firmly nestled between his thighs, she sat back on her heels. She looked her lover straight in the eye as she stretched out one hand and ran it slowly and lovingly along the front of his breeches.

  What did she feel there? What did she want so badly?

  As if he read her thoughts, Edward breathed in Alicia’s ear, “She’s stroking his cock. You can see how good it feels for them both.”

  “Yes,” Alicia murmured. The man, Marcus, had his back arched and his head thrown back. Freda smiled in wicked delight. Keeping up her rhythmic caress with one hand, she began to loosen the buttons on his breeches’ fly. She pushed the flap open, and laid him bare to the sunlight and her hungry gaze.

  “Oh,” breathed Alicia again. Marcus’s member—his cock, Edward called it—jutted up strong and proud from the nest of ginger curls. Its flesh was dark, its shape…complex. Intriguing, and somehow important. It was very important, this thing, how she was seeing it, how she did not wish to look away.