Daring declarations, p.7
Daring Declarations, page 7
His hand slipped. The gears pinched, then severed his skin. “D-damn.”
Hah. How the universe mocked and laughed. He couldn’t even get that out, a single swearword?
Couldn’t even split his finger and drip blood on his precious orrery without becoming a stammering fool?
“Got you, eh?” Taft commiserated as Daniel whipped out a handkerchief and wrapped it around his finger. Taft was already blotting the crimson smear off the brass. “No matter how much I profess to love them, these orrery rascals have a way of biting back, especially the worthwhile ones.”
“Aye.” It came out a curse.
“It was the same for my uncle,” Taft went on, oblivious to the interstellar explosion he’d just set off in Daniel’s stomach. “Hated having to talk in public or meet new people.”
And that did it. Nailed him in his coffin as surely as an undertaker. But Taft wasn’t finished yet. ’Course not. He just wanted to dig those nails in a little deeper. “Probably why he was so good with mechanics. Screws and such don’t talk back, eh, my lord?” He followed up this pithy pronouncement with a heartfelt sigh. “He’s the one who fostered my interest in clockworks and orreries, you know. Smartest man I ever knew, my uncle. Miss him terribly.”
Smartest man he knew?
There was that, at least.
Daniel had two choices: halt their efforts and deal with Thea—assuming she stayed long enough to let him—or carry on with the plaguingly perceptive man who had troubled himself to come lend aid.
What he refused to do was run away. Hide from the truth any longer, no matter how nauseous he felt, now that it was out.
Breathing through his nose with every bit of control he could exert, Daniel told himself this was his house, his study, his broken orrery, his mistress… Oh God, it was his everything. In vain he tried to muster courage where none existed. A fruitless effort. It had fled.
But he refused to let his mind do the same. There would be no pretending this wasn’t happening, no cloud-hopping escape to avoid the pain of the whip. Nay, it was time he took a stand. Brave whatever censure might come his way without hiding in the corner as he’d been taught by the lash.
Though it took more nerve than stepping into a ring with the beefiest of opponents, Daniel broke free from the coffin and nailed his feet in place. He swallowed twice, still without looking at Thea. “For me, ’t-twas my grandfather.”
“Your grandfather, eh?”
“Aye. T-teaching me of orreries.”
Taft nodded, pulled a magnifying glass from his pocket and bent closer. “Some say they’re a waste of money and one’s crown office.” The man sniffed as though those people were the idiots, not smart ones like his uncle. Like Daniel. He nudged Daniel with an elbow. “But we’ll show up their ignorant hides, eh? Get this sweetheart running…”
* * *
Lord Tremayne had trouble speaking?
Thea had forgotten to inhale. When her lungs protested, she came to with a slight choke. One she quickly muffled behind her hand, unable to stop staring at the men whose heads were bent over Uranus’s arm, inspecting it from bright-blue ball to innermost gear.
After seven-plus long years with Mr. Hurwell, she’d learned to hold her tongue. She did so now, working through what it all meant.
Lord Tremayne had trouble speaking.
Which explained so much, did it not?
Why he tended to arrive later than expected; it minimized talking opportunities if he was always rushing into place at the last second.
Why their flirty letters flowed with an ease, a verbosity she’d noticed on more than one occasion was absent from their in-person interactions.
Why he spoke so very deliberately, unless they were already laughing and the mirth masked the stammer for him.
Why he never came for dinner. Never lingered once they were intimate.
Has he told you anything more? Lady Elizabeth had asked at the opera. About himself?
Her mind whirled, remembering stutters and stumbles she’d overlooked or deemed unimportant at the time, given the wondrous topics they’d discussed. Remembering the ticking jaw or gritted teeth, the strained tendons in his neck that usually gave way to a brief word or two. Remembering the bruises he sported, both old and new.
So, this explained his reserve, his inclination toward tardiness. Did it explain the fighting? She’d have to work on that one.
When she didn’t feel so slighted.
At the moment Thea struggled with resentment. Waves of it clogging her throat, knotting her belly. It was a simple enough difficulty to explain. Why hadn’t he told her? Did he not trust her?
Oh, he trusted her with his body but not with who he was. And that hurt. Made her feel as though his lack of trust was somehow her fault.
But she hadn’t missed how his free hand had clutched the table with a white-knuckled grip. Nor had she missed how his spine had gone stiff, his ears slightly red. How his gaze studiously avoided hers.
He knew she’d overheard. Knew his secret was out. And the information affected him mightily.
Thea chose to stay where she was. Hadn’t her mother taught her that actions conveyed more of a person’s character than what they said?
Thoughtful gifts, joyous letters, a safe home, friendly servants…
Cyclops huffed, upset when she stopped petting, so she applied herself to making it up to him, never mind the growing damp patch on her dress.
Stray twins (thieves, no less), fearsome, drooly dogs (but lovable for all that)…and now her? It appeared Lord Tremayne had a propensity for rescuing those in need. Thea wasn’t quite sure what to make of her new philanthropic protector.
Was she just another in a long line of strays?
A few minutes later, after pulling out several intricate-looking tools from a rolled pouch he carried on his person, Mr. Taft called across the room. “Mrs. Hurwell, can you come over here, if you would? This part here needs a woman’s delicate touch and smaller fingers.”
“Certainly.” She transferred Cyclops’s muzzle to the chair and stood without meeting Lord Tremayne’s gaze. There was too much unsaid between them, too many emotions roiling through her (and she couldn’t even begin to fathom what he must be feeling). Nay, when she stared into his eyes again, they needed to be alone.
So she walked forward as normally as she could manage, keeping her gaze trained on the stately contraption. Though the room seemed to swirl and spin around her, the walls coming closer, then receding at once, the giant orrery remained a touchstone.
Lord Tremayne blurred as she approached, the floor beneath her feet pitched as though they were at sea. But the orrery stayed in sharp focus. Uranus wasn’t a mere blue ball, she realized as she fought the strange sensations and closed the distance. It was a perfectly spherical carving from lapis lazuli.
How beautiful. How…ordinary.
When her entire world just kept whirling. Whirling. Like that dratted planet needed to, in order to please the man who’d given her so much.
When she reached the intimidating apparatus, she skirted round it and came up directly between the two gentlemen.
Where she reached out and found Lord Tremayne’s arm. He was no longer hazy; no longer blurry. He was solid strength and quiet, gentle power. Safety and seduction.
He was the best thing she’d ever come into contact with, and she wasn’t about to give him up.
She slid her fingers down his shirtsleeve until she could slip her hand into his. Without their audience being aware, she gave a light squeeze, mindful of the handkerchief wrapped around the cut finger, telling him without words that she wouldn’t be the one to abandon what they’d started.
Only when Mr. Taft spoke again did she reluctantly release her hold.
“Right here.” Mr. Taft indicated where he needed her assistance. “If you could just…”
An hour later, after they’d finally coaxed Uranus to rotate as it should, in proper concert with the other six planets, and very aware of Thea’s gaze boring into his back, Daniel escorted Taft out of his study.
All things considered, it had been a tolerably successful evening.
In addition to his grandfather’s orrery, the three of them had also tweaked another one where Jupiter insisted on circling too fast (actually, Thea had nimbly adjusted the mechanism—after she’d wound them all up for Taft’s enjoyment—while the two men looked on).
Imagine that—a mechanically minded female.
Imagine that—his childhood idol exposing his secret sins to that very female.
Imagine his surprise when she hadn’t stared at him with derision or ridicule. No pity or sympathy either.
Just unwavering, silent support. Daniel hadn’t—
“Lord Tremayne, you must forgive an old fool usually surrounded by family and used to flapping his jaws at the least provocation.”
Barely three steps down the stairway, Taft launched into the most effusive of apologies. “It became apparent to me as the night wore on I’d veritably stepped in it. Oh, she tried to cover it, but ’twas obvious you’d not yet let on to Mrs. Hurwell about the speaking hesitations. Amazing, really, that you mask it so well. To get close enough to court a woman without her knowing—
“But that’s neither here nor there.” Upon reaching the entry, Taft stopped to draw on his coat, piercing Daniel with a sincere look of regret. “I humbly beg your forgiveness for letting my tongue tread where it had no business.”
Before Daniel could grant absolution and proffer his sincere thanks for all they’d accomplished, the man clamped his hat on his head and clapped his hands together. “Well now, seeing your collection has proved the pinnacle of my London jaunt. That and seeing Mrs. Hurwell so happy. Do please give her a chance, my lord. With the truth I mean. She’s both kind and resourceful. Wouldn’t have said so in her presence, but I always thought she was wasted on ol’ Hurwell. Bit of a curmudgeondy fellow if you ask me.”
“I agree,” Daniel got out before Taft nodded politely and exited, Swift John overly eager to summon the carriage that would return the clockmaker to his hotel.
That was fast.
Just then his housekeeper bundled by. Catching sight of him, Mrs. Peterson paused with a smile and open look of inquiry. Is there anything I can do for you? her kindly face asked.
The woman couldn’t hear a lick, which had always suited Daniel just fine. She read lips and gestures remarkably well. So it was easy to retrieve Thea’s pelisse, point to a spot on the sleeve, and make a motion with his fingers. With a nod, Mrs. Peterson bustled off, pelisse in hand.
Swift John stomped back in, wiping his wet feet on the rug. “Nice gent,” his footman commented, smoothing down the ever-present cowlick with a rain-slicked hand. “Friendly sort.”
Daniel grunted.
What now?
Taft was gone. But Thea isn’t.
The air expelled from his lungs so hard they ached.
“Well?” Swift John damn near clicked his heels together.
Daniel glared.
His servant ignored him and stared up the staircase, gaze fixed in the direction of Daniel’s study. “So, your lordship, she’s up there, is our Miss Thea…”
Our Miss Thea?
What? It wasn’t enough he’d not been alone with her all day; now he was expected to share her with his servants?
Something rather akin to a growl surfaced from the depths of his chest.
The impudent servant only grinned. “Aye, up there. In your study. All alone. Waiting. Fer. You.”
Swift John couldn’t have yelled Get your cowardly arse up there! any louder.
Where was a good opera when one needed to escape?
4
Whereupon the Mistress Becomes the Master
Once the mistress masters masterpieces her masterful master masterfully teaches, she manifests these mastered expertises upon his masterful centerpiece with eager reaches!
Kamasutra (as translated by Thomas Edward Everson into Adoring Arts of Luscious Love, circa 1830s)
Thea wasn’t quite sure how Mr. Taft arranged it, but he’d managed to depart—alone. Without her!
Oh, he’d clasped his hands to both of hers, eyes twinkling, as he expressed his delight in seeing her again (“and with you looking so radiant!”), and he’d more reservedly shaken Lord Tremayne’s hand and glowed over the shared challenge—and its successful outcome…
But then he’d rendered her speechless when he’d secured Lord Tremayne’s escort downstairs so he could take his leave after giving Thea a silent but emphatic command to stay put and see things made right, this expressed through the most regretful, and thoughtful, of looks.
Well, surprise her to Southampton and back, but she was starting to think the orrery expert was something of a magician as well. How else to explain her presence—after midnight—in the home of her beloved if bullheaded protector?
“That… Wasn’t…” Lord Tremayne came through the open doorway already speaking. “Wasn’t…” He stopped far away from where she tinkered with another beautiful specimen, this one more of a fantasy, showing comets and nebulae and all sorts of celestial wonders orbiting their double suns, with nary a planet in sight. Straightening, she faced him and waited.
His breath heaved from him like lava bursting from a volcano. “Find…out.”
His jaw was granite, eyes like steel. His hands kept flexing into fists at his sides.
He stood there holding her gaze—the self-loathing so evident in his, she thought her heart would crack.
Despite the heaviness centered in her stomach, the fear he’d push her away now that she knew, now that they were alone, her feet suddenly sprouted wings. She rushed to him and only stopped when he put a hand out as though warding her off.
“Just say it, please,” she implored, “without taxing yourself so. Whatever you think to express.”
* * *
Daniel closed his eyes against the appeal in hers. “I…can…not.”
“But you can with me! The difficulty you have doesn’t diminish you in my eyes.” Her voice grew softer even as it strengthened. She touched his arm. “Don’t you see by now? Nothing could.”
At that, his eyelids flew open. “I…”
Her fingers tightened on his wrist. “Except perhaps if you persist in fighting to the point your face looks like a field of wildflowers.”
She sounded so like Ellie, he tried to smile. “Thea. I… I—” Tension clawed up his neck and sank talons into his throat.
Penry’s morning call, the afternoon speech, utter surprise at his late-evening visitors. Talking with Taft the last hour. Exposing his affliction to Thea, unable to hide or avoid speaking…
He was hurting now, every bit as much as after Everson’s yesterday. Mayhap more. Scraped raw, swollen, ravaged by invisible arrows—Cupid’s damn arrow—he knew not which. Likely everything.
The pain was so great, if it hadn’t been for all those years inuring himself against his brother’s taunts, his father’s beatings, Daniel would’ve broken down and wept.
Not an option!
He swore and broke away from Thea, marched to the first solid surface he saw—the side of a bookcase, and slammed his hand against it.
He needed distance. Needed to escape.
But he didn’t want to.
His stinging palm hit the bookcase again as he willed his throat and neck to stop clenching. Stop punishing him.
“Stop.” Thea echoed his thoughts, feathering her fingers over his jaw, his cheeks. “Stop. You’ve done enough for one day. I can see the strain in your neck, the fatigue in your eyes. Tomorrow is soon enough. You can explain then, all you want, and I’ll gladly listen. Or later still, next week. Next month, even; I care not which. You need to rest.”
She wrapped her hands around his abused one and started tugging him toward the door. “Now, Buttons is here and could take me home or you could take me to your bedchamber— Ah-ah,” she admonished when he started to say something. She was making this too easy for him. “Tonight, I talk for the both of us. Personally, I would just as soon stay here. In your bed, of course. But I’m fully aware how vastly inappropriate—”
“There’s nn-no mirror,” exploded unbidden.
Color mantled her cheeks when she smiled. “Silly man,” she spoke to his nicked finger, softly touching the injured spot. “I don’t need a mirror to love you.”
He couldn’t contemplate whether she meant it literally, not now. Not when he needed to hold her so damn bad. Needed to bury his lips against the sweet skin of her neck and forget what a buffoon he’d made of himself the last hour.
With a growl loud enough to be heard in the kitchens, Daniel swung her into his arms and barreled through the doorway.
One look and a hovering Buttons was nodding—his bit-upon lips unable to stifle his grin—and running down the stairs, in the opposite direction, saying, “Aye, milord, you have it. I’ll see the team gets stabled for the night and get word to Sam and his missus so they don’t worry none about Miss Thea. See you in the morning an’ not before!”
* * *
“How grand,” Thea enthused, tucking her face in the crook of his neck as he turned toward the stairs. Up close, his divine scent could have crumbled her to her knees. Good thing he carried her.
Warming her lips against his fragrant skin, she said, “It appears as though we get to be inappropriate together.” She caressed the thick hair at his nape, threading her fingers through the cool, silken strands. She couldn’t help but notice the muscles of his neck beneath. “And look, you’re so strong, I don’t even need to hold on.”
Joyfully, she kicked her feet and waved her arms as he ascended the steps. He didn’t make so much as a perceptible pause. “No doubt I could roll over and try my hand at archery and you’d still hold tight.”
