Wicked Intentions (Maiden Lane #1)(67)

He stroked her hair. She still wore the yellow topaz pins he’d bought for her, though she’d changed her gown.

She shuddered as if remembering. “Her hair was down, Caire, and her bodice undone. He made her walk that way up the street, as if to brand her a whore. When she saw me, she started to cry.”

He closed his eyes, absorbing her pain, and repeated the only thing he knew to say. “I’m sorry.”

“She said nothing happened, that O’Connor made her stay the night in his bedroom but didn’t touch her. Oh, Caire, her protests were so pathetic that I didn’t dare press her for the truth. All I could do was hold her.”

He tightened his arms about her. “I’m sorry.”

She pulled back, looking into his eyes. “But the worst part was when we returned to the foundling home. William was waiting for us—”

“He didn’t accompany you in the hack?” Lazarus frowned.

Temperance shook her head. “He said if he was seen near O’Connor’s house, it would give credence to the claim that he was in league with the river pirate.”

Lazarus ran his hand soothingly over her back without comment. Hollingbrook sounded like a fool.

“And when we arrived, he took one look at Silence and then turned his face away. Oh, Caire”—her eyes closed wearily—“it near broke my heart.”

He bent his head then because he couldn’t not do so. His lips brushed hers gently. “I am so sorry.”

Her head sank wearily against his shoulder as she accepted his kisses. Her lips were soft and tasted of tears. He brushed his mouth over her cheeks, tasting the tears there as well, licking up her grief.

“Caire,” she sighed.

“Hmm?”

“I’m so tired,” she said, almost like a little girl. He guessed she’d not slept since he’d brought her back to her home the night before.

“Then lie with me a while,” he whispered.

He picked her up like a child and brought her to his still-unmade bed, laying her gently there before climbing in beside her. He pulled her close until her head was snuggled against his banyan-covered chest, pricking him with almost-pain.

She sighed again. “’S funny.”

“What is?” he murmured, threading his fingers through her hair. He took the yellow topaz jewels out of her coiffure and laid them on the table by his bed.

“William sent word. After he went home with Silence. After my brothers argued and Asa stormed out.”

“What did he say?” He plucked bent little pins from her hair, one by one, releasing her tresses from their confinement, combing them gently with his fingers.

“The ship’s cargo,” she said. “Mickey O’Connor kept his word. It was all there on the ship this morning. As if it had never disappeared in the first place.”

Lazarus stared at the canopy over his bed and thought about a thief’s perfidy and his honor and the price a woman might pay for the man she loved. When he looked down again, he saw that Temperance breathed slowly and evenly against him, her lush mouth slightly parted. Her mahogany hair was spread like a blanket of silk upon his shoulder and bed, and the sight gave him satisfaction deep in his soul.

He lifted one lock and watched as the strands curled adoringly around his fingers. He smiled slightly. How a man might deceive himself with such a sight.

Then he let his arm drop. He pulled her a little closer against his chest and closed his own eyes.

And slept.

SHE AWOKE IN a darkened room with the realization that something awful waited for her just as soon as she opened her eyelids.

So she didn’t.

She drifted, not thinking, not waking, trying to hold on to the peace of sleep. There was another body next to hers, large and warm and comforting, and she concentrated on that. He breathed deeply as if still asleep, and she liked the sound of his soft exhalations. It meant that she wasn’t alone. She wished she could stay here forever, in the gray warmth of half-sleep. But inevitably, wakefulness and knowledge intruded and she opened her eyes on a pained gasp.

Caire’s arm tightened about her.

She turned her face into his side, inhaling his musk, ashamed that tears still threatened. Silence was the youngest, the most innocent of their family, and her downfall seemed too terrible to bear, as if all light had been extinguished in the world.

He sighed heavily, one hand trailing down her back to her bottom and squeezing. “Temperance.”

He was hot. She slid her arm over his back, vaguely surprised to realize that only a thin layer of silk separated her fingers from his bare skin. “Caire.”

His mouth found hers, lazy with sleepiness. He kissed her and she was comforted, here in the darkness. She wasn’t Temperance at this moment; he wasn’t an aristocratic lord far above her. Here in the limbo between night and day, they were simply a man and a woman.

And as a woman, she opened her mouth to his.

He made a satisfied sound, deep in his chest, and thrust his tongue into her mouth, asserting his authority. She let him, drawing him deep. Right now she didn’t want to face the world outside those bedroom doors. She only wanted to feel.

To let herself feel as she hadn’t in years.

Desire hit her, hard and fast. She’d always been particularly vulnerable to physical lust, had to guard against it every day of her life to make sure others didn’t know how it controlled her. Now she let it run free.