The Madness Of Lord Ian Mackenzie (7 page)

Beth leaned on the piano and smiled at him. “I’m certain your teachers were impressed.”

“No. I was beaten for it.”

Beth’s smile died. “You were punished for learning a piece perfectly? Rather a strange reaction, isn’t it?”

“My father called me a liar because I said I’d only heard it once. I told him I didn’t know how to lie, so he said, ‘Better be thought a liar, because what you’ve done is unnatural. I’ll teach you never to do it again.’”

A gruff note entered Ian’s voice as he echoed the man’s timbre as well as his words. Beth’s throat tightened. “That’s horrible.”

“I was often beaten. I was disrespectful, evasive, difficult to control.”

Beth imagined Ian as a boy, his frightened gold eyes looking everywhere but straight at his father while the man shouted at him. Then closing his eyes in pain and fear as the cane came down.

Ian began another piece, this one slow and sonorous. He kept his head half bent, his strong face still as he focused on the keys. His thigh moved as he worked the pedal, his entire body playing the music.

Beth recognized the piece as a piano concerto by Beethoven, one the tutor Mrs. Barrington had hired for Beth had liked. Beth had been a mediocre player, her hands too work-worn and stiff to learn the skill. The tutor had been haughty and mocking of her, but at least he’d never beaten her.

Ian’s large fingers skimmed the keyboard, and slow notes filled the room, the sound rich and round. Ian might claim he couldn’t find the music’s soul, but the strains of it called too vividly to mind the dark days Beth had suffered after her mother’s death. She remembered sitting in a corner in the hospital ward, her arms around her knees, watching as her mother’s consumption stole her last breaths. Her beautiful mother, always so frail and frightened, who’d clung to Beth for strength, was now ripped from the life that had terrified her. The hospital had turned Beth out after they laid her mother in a pauper’s grave. Beth had not wanted to return to the parish workhouse, but her feet had taken her there. She’d known she had nowhere else to go. They at least had given her a job, since she could speak well and had a modicum of manners. She’d taught younger children and tried to comfort herself by comforting them, but all too often they fled the workhouse to return to the more lucrative life of crime.

It was only the in-between people like Beth who were trapped. She didn’t want to resort to selling her body to survive, feeling nothing but disgust for men who could lust after fifteen-year-old girls. Nor could she find respectable employment as, a governess or nanny. She had little education, and middle-class women didn’t want someone from a Bethnal Green workhouse taking care of their precious tots. She’d finally persuaded one of the parish women to find her a typing machine. The woman had eventually produced a third-hand one whose B and Y keys stuck, and Beth had practiced and practiced on it. When she got a little older, she reasoned, she could hire herself out as a typist. Perhaps people wouldn’t mind her background as long as she worked quickly and efficiently. Or she might write little stories or articles and try to persuade newspapers to buy them. She had no idea how this was done, but it was worth a try.

And then one day, while she was pounding away at the machine, the new vicar of the parish came to call. Beth had been soundly cursing the B key, and Thomas Ackerley had looked at her and laughed.

A tear rolled swiftly down her cheek. She put a quick hand on Ian’s, and the piece stumbled to a halt. “You don’t like it,” he said, his voice flat.

“I do—only, could you play something a little happier?” Ian’s gaze skimmed past her like a beam of sunlight. “I don’t know whether a piece is happy or sad. I just know the notes.”

Beth’s throat squeezed. If she wasn’t careful, she’d start blubbering all over him. She whirled to the music cabinet and dug through sheets until she found something that made her smile.

“How about this?” She brought it back to the piano and spread the music across the stand.

“Mrs. Barrington hated the opera—she couldn’t understand why anyone wanted to listen to people bellow for hours in a foreign tongue. But she loved Gilbert and Sullivan. They at least speak plain English.” Beth opened the music to the ditty that had made Mrs. Barrington laugh the most. She’d made Beth learn it and play it over and over. Beth had tired of the bouncy rhythms and the absurd words, but now she was grateful to Mrs. Barrington’s tastes.

Ian looked at the paper without changing expression. “I can’t read music.”

Beth had leaned over him without thinking, and now the rosette at her bosom was level with his nose. “No?”

Ian studied the rosette, his eyes taking in every facet of it. “I have to hear it. Play it through for me.” He shifted slightly, giving her about five inches of space on the bench. Beth sat down, her heart hammering. He wasn’t about to move, and his body was like a solid wall. This close she felt the hard muscle of his biceps, the length of his thigh against hers.

His amber eyes glittered behind thick lashes as he half turned his head to watch her. Beth drew a breath. She stretched her arm across his abdomen to reach the lower notes, clumsily played through the intro, and then sang in a shaky voice.

“I am the very model of a modern major-general…”

Ian studied Beth’s nimble fingers as they tripped across the keyboard. Her nails were small and rounded, neatly trimmed, her only adornment a silver ring on the little finger of her left hand.

Her soothing alto flowed over him, though he didn’t bother to make sense of the words.

“I’m very good at integral and differential calculus; I know the scientific names of beings animalculous…”

The blue rosette at her bosom rose and fell as she sang, and her elbow slid across his waistcoat as she reached up and down the keyboard. Light blue silk flowed across her lap—no more drab gray for Beth Ackerley. Isabella must have taken her in hand. One curl fell across her cheek as she sang. He watched it bounce against her skin, watched her mouth pronouncing the lively words. He wanted to take the curl between his lips and pull it straight.

At last the tune lilted upward with her voice: “I am the very model of a modern majorgeneral.” A few tinkling chords, and that was the end. Beth smiled at him, out of breath. “I haven’t practiced in a while. I have no excuse now, since Isabella has this excellent piano.”

Ian laid his fingers on the keys where Beth’s had been.

“Is the song supposed to make sense?”

“Do you mean to say you’ve never seen
The Pirates of Penzance?
Mrs. Barrington dragged me to it four times. She’d sing along with the entire performance, to the dismay of the audience around us.”

Ian went to the theatre or opera when Mac or Hart or Cameron took him along, and he didn’t much care what he saw there. The thought of taking Beth to this show and having her explain it appealed to him.

He recalled the notes exactly as she’d played them, and they came tripping out of his fingers. He sang the words, not caring about meaning.

Beth smiled as he performed his trick, and then she joined in. “With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse…”

They ran through it, Beth singing in his ear. He wanted to turn and kiss her, but he couldn’t stop in the middle of a piece. He had to play it to the end. He finished with a flourish.

“That was—“ Ian cut off her praise by cupping the nape of her neck and taking her mouth in a hard kiss. Beth tasted brandy, felt the burn of his whiskers. He laced his fingers through the hair at the base of her neck, fingertips finding sensitive skin. He kissed her like a lover, as if she were his courtesan. She imagined glittering, overly sensual ladies melting like ice on a hot sidewalk when Ian touched them. He feathered kisses onto Beth’s cheekbones. His breath was hot, and she felt her body loosening, flowing like water.

“I shouldn’t let you do this,” she whispered.

“Why not?”

“Because I think you could break my heart.” He traced his finger around her lips, outlining the cleft of the top lip and the roundness of the lower. His gaze remained on her lips as his large hand moved to her thigh. “Are you wet?” Ian whispered, teeth on her earlobe.

“Yes.” She tried to swallow. “If you must know, I am quite, quite damp.”

“Good.” His hot tongue circled the shell of her ear. “You understand such things. Why you need to be wet.”

“My husband explained on our wedding night. He thought that ignorance on the woman’s part was the cause of much unnecessary pain.”

“An unusual vicar.”

“Oh, Thomas was quite the radical. A thorn in the side of his bishop, with all his modern views.”

“I would like to explain even more,” Ian whispered.

“Someplace more private than here.”

“That’s a mercy.” Beth laughed a little. “It is fortunate I am not a delicate, shielded lady. If I were, I’d be on the ground in a state of unconsciousness, with Isabella’s servants trying to fan me.”

His eyes flickered. “Does what I say anger you?”

“No, but never speak like that in a drawing room full of ladies and fine china, I implore you. There would be quite a mess.”

He nuzzled her hair. “I’ve never been with a lady before. I don’t know the rules.”

“Fortunately, I’m an unusual sort of woman. Mrs. Barrington did her best to change that, but she never succeeded, bless her.”

“Why should she want to change you?”

Beth warmed. “My lord, I do believe you are the most flattering man of my acquaintance.”

Ian paused, his expression unreadable. “I state truths. You are perfect as you are. I want to see you bare, and I wish to kiss your cunny.”

The heat there flared. “And as always, I don’t know whether to run away from you or stay and bask in your attention.”

“I know how to answer that.” He snaked his strong fingers around her wrist. “Stay.” His hand was heavy and warm, and he traced a circle on the inside of her arm. “I must confess that your plain speaking is refreshing after the acrobatics I must perform to keep up with Isabella’s friends.”

“Tell Isabella’s gentlemen friends to keep far from you. I don’t want them touching you.”

His fingers clamped down, and she glanced pointedly at his large hand still wedged into her skirts. “Only you can touch me?”

He nodded, brows together. “Yes.”

“I don’t think I mind that,” she said softly.

“Good.”

He moved her deftly onto his lap, her bustle not letting her sit quite against him. Disappointing things, bustles. The blue rosette at her bosom crushed against Ian’s waistcoat, and he cupped his hand around her bottom. She didn’t argue, didn’t gasp at him for taking a liberty. She wanted to take even more of a liberty with him. She wanted to undo the buttons of his trousers and put her hand inside. She wanted to work through layers of cloth until she could stroke his swollen organ, to feel it against her hand. Never mind that they sat in Isabella’s front drawing room; never mind that the curtains were wide open to the busy Paris street.

“I am a wicked, wicked woman,” she murmured. “Kiss me again.”

Without a word he swiftly slanted his lips over hers. His tongue stabbed inside her mouth, and he pressed his fingers to the corners of her lips, opening her wider. These weren’t the kisses of a man flirting. They were the kisses of a man who wanted to lie with her, damn the timing and damn the circumstances. Every part of her that touched him throbbed.

“We should stop,” she whispered.

“Why?”

Beth couldn’t think of a reason.
I am a widowed lady, well past the age of innocence. Why should I not kiss a handsome man in a drawing room? A little carnality won’t hurt me.

She snaked her wanton hand between his thighs, finding the hard ridge behind his trousers.

“Mmm.” One corner of his mouth turned up. “Do you want to touch it?”

Yes, please,
said the wicked lady. “I can hear the china breaking now.”

“What?” His brow furrowed.

“Never mind. You are a rogue and a scoundrel, and I love every single second of it.”

“I don’t understand you.”

She cupped his face. “Never mind, never mind. I’m sorry I spoke.”

Her lips felt raw, swollen from his kisses. She kissed the curve of his lower lip, tasting the corners of his mouth as he’d done with her. He chased her tongue, pinning it inside her mouth before he proceeded to lick every inch of it.

He wants me to welcome him into my bed and not be ashamed.
This was a world she didn’t know, one she’d only glimpsed through half-closed curtains behind which diamond bedecked women smiled at cigar-smoke-wreathed gentlemen. So many houses, so many windows, so much warmth inside, and this was the first time she’d been invited in. The door suddenly banged open, and Isabella strolled into the room in a blue silk dressing gown. Beth tried to jump away from Ian, but he was holding her too tight. She ended up half sitting on, half sliding off his knee. Isabella peered blearily about. “Ian, darling, what are you doing here playing Gilbert and Sullivan at the crack of dawn? I thought I was having a nightmare.”

Beth finally slid to her feet, her face flaming. “I beg your pardon, Isabella. We didn’t mean to wake you.” Isabella’s eyes widened. “I see. I beg
your
pardon for interrupting.”

Thank heavens for corsets,
Beth thought distractedly. Her nipples were hard little points against the fabric, but the thick boning would hide it.

Ian didn’t rise. He leaned one elbow on the piano and studied the moldings behind Isabella.

“Will you stay to breakfast, Ian?” Isabella asked. “I’ll try to prop my eyes open long enough to join you.” He shook his head. “I came to deliver Beth a message.”

“Did you?”

Beth asked. How ridiculous, she’d never thought to ask why he’d suddenly appeared in Isabella’s drawing room.

“From Mac.” Ian continued to stare across the room. “He says he’ll be ready to start your drawing lessons in three days. He wants to finish the painting he’s working on first.”

Isabella answered before Beth could. “Really? My husband was always so good at doing two things at once.” Her voice was strained.