A Passion for Pleasure(43)

He did not take his hand from her leg. After an interminable period of time, she relaxed her tight fist and allowed her hand to spread over his. Not looking at him, she pulled off her gloves. He turned his palm upward. His strong fingers knotted with hers.

Desire sheared into her soul like the clip of scissors, both the physical reaction of warmth and the longing not to feel so utterly alone anymore. Even her beloved uncle with his unflagging support could not ease Clara’s sense of cold isolation.

But the clasp of Sebastian’s hand in hers reminded her of his presence and assuaged the loneliness. Just a bit. Just for now.

She tightened her fingers on his as a black carriage pulled in front of the town house. She recognized the matching grays that came to a stop, their sleek manes rippling in the twilight, their polished hooves stamping the cobblestones.

Her spine stiffened. In one swift movement, Sebastian was beside her, peering past her through the window. “Is that your father?”

“H-his carriage.”

Fairfax’s driver had parked at an angle that allowed her to see the space between the carriage and the front of the town house. When the footman swung open the carriage door, Clara gripped Sebastian’s hand so tightly her knuckles burned.

Her father stepped down—a tall, slender figure in a blue greatcoat and hat, his gloves white as bone in the diminishing light. Fairfax carried himself with an elegance that masked his brutal streak, like a gleaming sharp sword concealed within an ivory-tipped cane.

Even as dark memories and anger rushed at her in a torrent, Clara’s heart wrenched at the sight of the man who had sired her, clothed and fed her, the man who might still, somewhere, harbor an emotion resembling love for her.

Fairfax spoke to the footman. No one followed him down from the carriage.

Clara tried to deflect the arrow of disappointment, realizing only in that moment of bitter dejection how much she had hoped today would be different from all the other times she had sat in desperate surveillance, wishing for one glimpse of her son.

She turned to Sebastian, seeking his eyes, needing his assurance. “You can tell your dri—”

“Clara.” Holding her gaze, he nodded to the window.

She looked…and gasped. The footman held the door of the carriage again to allow a brown-haired boy to exit. Andrew grasped the handle as he navigated the steps and stopped not far from where Fairfax stood.

Clara’s heart pounded wildly, her blood filling with a chaotic mixture of joy and despair. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think past the single desperate thought that her son stood a scant distance away and had no idea she was right here.

Fairfax turned, lifting his arm as a breeze threatened to tip his hat from his head.

In that instant, Clara saw it. Andrew flinched, hunching his shoulders into his coat and taking a half-step back. The movement was almost unnoticeable, or at the very least attributable to a gust of cold air or unpleasant odor…but Clara knew her son’s reaction for what it was, and the very marrow of her bones froze to ice.

“No.” The word scraped her throat like rusted metal. “No.”

She wrenched her hand from Sebastian’s grip and flung open the carriage door. Rage swamped her so fast, so hard, that murder felt within her grasp. She plunged with reckless abandon across the street. “Andrew!”

“Clara!” Sebastian shouted from behind her.

A screeching noise filled the air, the yell of a cart driver, the whinnying cry of a frightened horse.

“Andrew!”

Her father and son both turned. Fairfax moved with the swiftness of a lizard, shoving Andrew toward the town house steps and snapping orders at one of the footmen. The man rushed between Clara and Andrew, blocking the boy from her line of sight.

“No!” Blinded by tears, Clara reached the other side of the street the instant the town house door opened and the second footman pushed Andrew inside. “I won’t let you do this! I won’t let you keep him from me!”

“Stay away, Clara.” Fairfax faced her, pointing his forefinger as if to condemn her. “You have no right to him.”

“I do have a right to him!” Clara’s chest burned with anguish. “I’m his mother. Andrew!”

The footman at the door grunted suddenly and grabbed his shin. A small figure darted around him and back down the steps.

Tears streamed down Clara’s cheeks as Andrew approached closer…closer…a few more steps and he would be in her unbreakable embrace, his arms around her neck, and she would run and run and keep running.…