A Study In Seduction

chapter Thirty-One




Alexander’s heart pounded so hard he felt it would burst through his chest. He’d waited for news of the riot to calm over the past week before approaching Lydia again, but the span of time had caused his emotions to knot into a disordered mess. He wiped his damp palms on his coat as Mrs. Driscoll bustled forward to lead him into the study.

Lydia rose from a seat beside the window, a guarded smile appearing on her face. His heart thumped harder. She’d never looked more beautiful, standing in a patch of fog-coated sunlight, wearing a black dress with a lace collar encircling her neck, her long hair captured in a ribbon. Her skin was pale, her blue eyes grave but not cold.

After Mrs. Driscoll left, Lydia stepped forward to clasp Alexander’s hands, squeezing them tight. She smiled.

Oh, God. Could he possibly love her more?

“Hello.” He couldn’t manage another word.

Amusement flashed in her eyes. “Hello.”

Alexander cleared his throat. “You’ve… you’ve been all right?”

“Yes. You? Talia told me the Society of Arts council has called a meeting for next week.”

“To discuss what happened, yes. Lord Hadley asked two of the police inspectors to attend and give their reports of what happened that night.”

“Why would the police… oh, Alexander.”

“It doesn’t matter, Lydia.”

“It does matter! They can’t charge you with something that wasn’t your fault.”

“They’ve been wanting an excuse to strip me of my duties anyway, so this is certainly convenient. Russian blood alone wasn’t a strong enough reason for dismissal.”

“But if there’s no evidence—”

“They don’t need evidence proving I was at fault. What matters is that there’s no evidence proving I wasn’t.”

“Surely they know it wasn’t until the gunshot that—”

“The police weren’t there when that happened. All they’ve got are people’s accounts. They don’t really know anything.”

Lydia caught her lower lip between her teeth and stared at his cravat for a moment.

“What are they saying?” she asked. “That you incited the riot by assaulting Dr. Cole?”

“Essentially. It’s not a legal charge, but they’ll either find a way to make it one or there’ll be a report in the Times that’ll do as much, if not more, damage.”

“But there was a mob of people outside before you even arrived at the hall. There was already—”

“Lydia.” He stepped closer to her, cupping the sides of her neck between his hands. He inhaled and let the clean, fresh-pencil scent of her soothe his frayed nerves. “It doesn’t matter.”

“You’re wrong, Alexander.” Lydia’s voice rose a notch, her shoulders tensing. “All you’ve done, all you’ve worked for, they can’t take it all away from you on some trumped-up charge. You can’t let them—”

Alexander kissed her. He pressed his lips to hers and felt the pulse in her neck leap against his palm. Fierce satisfaction filled him when Lydia sank against him as if she could do nothing else, her arms sliding around his waist, responding to his kiss with both softness and heat. A little noise escaped her throat. He fought the urge to yank the ribbon from her hair and bury his hands in all that lush silk.

Lydia’s hands flattened against his chest as she tried to put some distance between them. “Stop,” she whispered.

He forced himself to step back, swiping a hand down his face. He had to make this work. He had to.

“Is…” His voice tangled. He swallowed and tried again. “Is Jane all right? Your grandmother?”

“Yes. Jane is… well, we need to figure out how to navigate this new territory between us, but she’s not angry with me anymore. Still I think it will take time before she fully understands.”

A tinge of sorrow appeared in her eyes as she turned to pour them both tea. She was silent as she handed him a cup, then added sugar and cream to hers. Alexander waited for her to settle on the sofa, then sat in a chair a distance away so he would be less tempted to touch her.

“What was it like?” he asked. “Acting like she was your sister when…”

Her shoulders lifted. “I became accustomed to it. I had to. When my grandmother determined that’s what we’d do, I was relieved. She and my father could have given the infant away, or sent us both away, and there would have been nothing I could do. So even though we had to lie, I was grateful I could keep Jane. And not just keep her—I was with her all the time. I never thought of her as Dr. Cole’s child, only as mine.”

She sipped her tea, looking out the window as if she were gazing at her past. “And during moments when I wished… when I longed… for her to know I was her mother, I had only to remember that she could so easily have been taken from me. But I think… I know I’ve always held something back from her. I’ve had to. With that kind of deception, I could never be everything I wanted to be to Jane. I could never truly be myself.”

She blinked hard, her mouth compressing as she set her cup aside. “Even before Jane, I don’t know if that had been possible. I was a strange child, Alexander. I found so much comfort in numbers, their purity, their comprehensibility.

“And though I will be forever grateful to my grandmother for insisting that my talent be nurtured, I also wish I’d learned to understand people as well as I did equations. Things might have turned out very differently if I had, though I still wouldn’t have given Jane up for anything. But it wasn’t until I met you…”

A tremble rippled through her voice. She paused, a mixture of sorrow and regret coloring her expression. “When I gave in to Dr. Cole, I did so because I wanted to feel something. I hadn’t realized that ever since my mother took ill, I’d been buried beneath layers of calculations and theorems. I don’t know what I expected, if I thought we’d fall in love or have a brief affair. I didn’t know if he’d leave his wife. All I knew was that I felt… awake. For the first time ever.”

Alexander’s jaw tightened to the point of pain. He hated, despised, the idea that Lydia—his Lydia—would ever have imagined she could find happiness with another man.

“But then,” Lydia continued, “I realized how horribly wrong it all was. I was awake, but within a nightmare of betrayal and deceit. Both Dr. Cole’s and mine. And even after Jane was born—especially after she was born because I was so afraid of making a mistake—I retreated back into what I thought was the safety of numbers.”

She fell silent for a moment. “And for so many years, that was fine. I had Jane. I had my work. But then I met you.”

She lifted her head, and those blue eyes fixed on him with such directness that he knew he was looking right into her bare soul.

“I didn’t even realize until then that I’d retreated into a prison of my own making,” Lydia said. “I hadn’t considered what would happen to me, to Jane, once she came of age. Once she left home, got married, began her own life. I’d continue my work, of course, but then I realized it wasn’t… it wasn’t enough.”

As Alexander continued to look at her, something cracked inside him, a feeling of simultaneous damage and growth, like a fresh shoot breaking through a hard, dry seed.

“What do you want, Lydia?” he asked, remembering the night so many weeks ago when he’d asked that very question in a desperate attempt to understand her.

For a long moment, they looked at each other, as if she, too, was recalling that night, that kiss, that moment when everything had changed forever.

“I want my family to be happy,” she said. “I want people to still admire my father’s work, to respect all he did. I want my grandmother to feel as if all she’s done has finally led to something good. I want Jane to live the life she wants, to—”

“No. What do you want for you?”

She didn’t respond. He set his cup down and approached her. Nervousness twined through him.

“I know what I want,” he said. “I still want you, Lydia.”

She continued staring out the window. “Please, don’t.”

“I want to marry you. I don’t give a damn what people say, what the Society outcome is, what—”

“You don’t, do you?” She turned to him, frustration sparking in her eyes. “What about your father? Don’t you think marriage to me will make him even more of a recluse? And Lady Talia? She’s had a difficult enough time as it is, hasn’t she? What will happen when people learn her brother married a woman who has an illegitimate child?”

“We don’t have to announce it, for God’s sake.”

“So we marry and keep it a secret? What about Jane? Would she live with us as my sister still? And what happens if we’re unable to prevent the truth from getting out?”

“No one else needs to know the truth.”

“You would take that risk, keep that kind of secret, while knowing the truth could ruin you and destroy your family?” She stepped forward, her blue eyes hardening. “Didn’t your mother keep a secret, Alexander?”

Anger coursed through him, sudden and swift. “My mother has nothing to do with this.”

“But her secret is what caused your family’s disgrace. Do you truly want to live like that?”

Old, hard feelings battered Alexander, culminating in a helplessness that caught him in a tight vise. His chest ached with it.

“I will fix this, Lydia.” His eyes stung as he willed her to believe him.

She continued as if he hadn’t spoken.

“And do you honestly think I would put your family, put you, in that kind of position? Subject you to such risk?” She stepped closer and put her cool hand against his cheek. Her blue eyes, filled with emotions he could not identify, searched his face. “This is why I refused your marriage proposal, Alexander. And I’m beyond grateful that we can finally be honest with each other, but that doesn’t change my decision. I cannot marry you.”

Her hand slipped away from him. Tears filled her eyes, making them look like the fathomless depths of the ocean.

“What do I want for me?” she asked. “I want a quiet life, like the one I…” She looked away.

“What?” Alexander demanded.

“Like the one I had before I met you.” Her voice was so low he had to strain to hear her.

Alexander’s fists clenched so hard his knuckles hurt. She was trying to hurt him, to drive him away. He knew that, and yet her words still hit him like rocks. “That life is gone, Lydia.”

She swiped at her tears. “N-not for me.”

“Really? Jane knows you’re her mother now. Hasn’t that changed everything for you?”

She flinched. Glad to see evidence of her disconcertion, Alexander backed to the door. He pointed a finger at her.

“The only life you can have now, Lydia—the only life we can both have—is the one we make for ourselves.”