Briefly, the reminder of his business made her whole body feel unpleasantly heavy. He was scheming to take the artifacts, and when he did, he would effectively be banned from Britain. Their time was so limited. She could not think of anything more to say until the cab came to a halt in front of her address. She owned the last in a row of terraced town houses, four stories tall and gleaming white, with a balcony fronting the entire first floor. Two white columns and a portcullis framed the black lacquered entrance door.
Elias followed her up the steps with her valise. When she picked out the key from her chatelaine rather than ring and wait for a butler, his confusion was palpable. He was wary by the time they entered the quiet corridor. The air smelled musty and undisturbed. The open doors revealed rooms with furniture shrouded in protective linen sheets. A fuzzy layer of dust covered the surface of the sideboard.
Elias put her valise down and his cutting gaze met hers.
“No one is here,” he said.
“No.” That was the point.
He spun his hand in a quizzical motion. “Your servants ran away?”
“I don’t employ permanent staff here.”
“You . . . will stay here . . . alone?” he drawled.
“Aye.”
He picked up her valise again. “Let me take you to Mrs. Blackstone’s house.”
“What—why?”
“You cannot stay here.”
“Well, I think I shall?” She sounded almost amused.
His eyebrows were moving up and down with disapproval. “Alone.”
“Perfectly alone.”
“You need meals,” he said, “a fire in the hearth. Someone to stand guard.” His free hand was emphasizing every sentence.
“I know how to set up a fire, but I don’t need them in summer anyway,” she replied. “The plumbing here is excellent, and there is a pub at the corner where I fetch meals.”
“The pub, ya rabb.” He glanced up at the ceiling with a harassed expression. “The pub we just passed? What if some drunk notices you? Follows you back here?”
His agitation had thickened his accent. The beat of her heart became unnaturally slow.
“I appreciate your concern, sir, but I know my own mind,” she said.
She sensed what he would do before he did it: he looked up again, as if summoning divine guidance for how to proceed.
“Very well,” he then conceded. “You know your mind.”
“Thank you.”
He hadn't put her valise back down.
“May I call on you,” he asked, calmer now. “In the mornings. To put my mind at ease.”
Her mouth made the decision for her. “You could stay.”
She had said it so softly, she was not certain he would hear it.
Elias had heard very well. He stood still as a statue with her suitcase in his hand. Surprise etched his face, but the depths of his eyes were quiet. As though a part of him was not surprised at all.
“You see,” she went on, “this isn’t my father’s house. It was always my mother’s, and she left it to me. I’m under my own roof.”
Chapter 21
She had retreated into the reception room and was waiting next to a shrouded armchair, her pulse thumping in her throat. From the corridor came the sound of the entrance door falling shut. Elias had returned; he had gone outside to pay the cab driver so the man would wait a little longer. He entered the reception room with a blank expression, but the details of his face stood out so clearly, she could have counted his dark lashes from where she stood. He halted in front of her, as close as a lover about to move in for a kiss. His warm scent filled her on her next breath.
“Now,” he said, his gaze rather piercing. “Will you tell me why you have asked me to stay?”
She felt surveyed like some exotic creature, so she studied the nearest wall. He clasped her chin in his hand and turned her face back to him.
“You don’t have to stay,” she said.
“Oh, I know. But you surprise me. We are surrounded by eyes here—there is much at stake for you just by allowing me to enter this house.”
“It’s the middle of the summer,” she replied. “Everyone is in the country. We have a back entrance, in the kitchen. I’m not out for a proposal, if that is what you think,” she added.
“I didn’t think you were,” he said easily. “You wouldn’t ask me to stay here, like this, if you wanted the position of my wife.”
For a heartbeat, her insides felt hollow and charred. “Is that why you touched me in your room the other day,” she murmured, “because you think I’m a strumpet.”
He clenched his jaw. “No. That I did because I forgot myself.”
Because he had been angry.
Something in his undertone compelled her to say: “I don’t think I want to be, or rather, can be, anyone’s wife, Mr. Khoury.”
There was an infinitesimal pause.
“So you only want us to—” He gestured it.
Her arms hung limply by her sides. “All I know is that whenever I think of you leaving, I’m shaking inside,” she said in a low voice. “I’m shaking as though I were falling ill.”
He made a soothing sound and pulled her closer, until his thighs pressed into her skirts between them.
“Sometimes, I don’t know what is inside your head,” he said, his eyes searching hers. “You say outrageous things with the most unassuming face.”
She wasn’t unassuming. She had imagined their naked bodies entwined, sated and gleaming with spent desire.
“Is it truly so outrageous?” she asked.
Elias closed his eyes for a moment, then shook his head as if to clear his mind. “If you and I existed in our own world, all alone,” he finally said, “then no.”
She had all but missed their first kiss. The second had been angry, to demonstrate a point. This time, when he lowered his head, his mouth met hers slowly, molding their trembling lips together with deliberate care. Her eyes fell shut. The silky tip of his tongue glided over her sensitive bottom lip, and her breath left her with a sob. He used the moment to slip into her mouth. Yes. A soft groan, and his gloves dropped to the floor, and then he was holding her face in his warm palms. His thumbs were at the corners of her mouth, caressing the delicate skin as he deepened the kiss with gentle pressure. She kept her eyes closed to feel it all in the dark, the rush of his breath over her cheek, the intimate textures of him like the glassy smoothness of his teeth, the warm slickness under his tongue. She was warm and slick between her thighs, too, right where she felt the insistent heat of his arousal through the thickness of her skirt. When her hands clasped restlessly at the knot of his cravat, he broke the kiss.
The room was blurred around her. Elias kept the pad of his thumb against her lips, as if wanting to prolong the sensation of her mouth on him. Drunk on impulse, she licked him. He took a sharp little breath, which made her do it again, and he pushed the tip of his thumb into her mouth. At first, he held still while she explored the salty taste and unfamiliar feel of his skin against her tongue, and then he moved his finger in and out for a bit. She let him.
“Ah,” he said, and pulled back his hand, his gaze fixed on her mouth. “Do you like it when I do that?”
She liked the look of his eyes swimming in molten desire.
“Yes,” she breathed. “I like it.”
He muttered something incomprehensible, then: “I shall think about your proposition.”
Well, that was humiliating.
He took in her lowered head and burning cheeks.
“Heh,” he said softly. “You know it’s a bad idea.”