Page 30 of Seductive Reprise
“Joseph,” she hissed as a well-worn hansom pulled up to the pavement.
“What’s your direction?”
She flushed. She’d never been ashamed of her lodgings before. With no small measure of hesitancy, she mumbled the street and number.
But he didn’t comment, only handed her up into the waiting cab, relaying the direction to the cabman.
Awkward and uncomfortable, Rose smoothed out her skirts, a million thoughts warring in her head. Joseph handed up her valise, looking at her so intently it caused her flush to deepen. What was she thinking, allowing him to care for her? Her thoughts turned about, twisting themselves beyond any sort of usefulness.
“Next time,” he said, “you will accompany me. In my carriage.”
Before she could protest, or even offer her thanks for paying her fare, were she politely inclined—which she certainly wasn’t—he stepped back and knocked at the side of the cab with his walking stick.
She made an irritated sort of huff and turned away, arms clutching her valise to her chest. Fat lot of good that was, for that old, aching yearning had already taken hold in her. She didn’t look back at him. In that, at least, she held strong.
Chapter Ten
Yusef fancied he couldsee Florence watching him from a third-story window of the Pall Mall mansion when his carriage pulled up.
Perhaps it was just her wraith haunting him—the antagonistic younger sister always at the ready to take him down a few pegs or set off his temper, whichever came first. But when he disembarked and found himself staring down the door of Marbury House, his father’s sprawling London residence built in the Palladian style, all the windows were empty. He stood there, slowly taking in the scene. It had been a good long while since he’d last set foot here. When he’d left following that visit, he’d hoped to return only to pay his respects when the duke finally gave up the ghost; he’d imagined he would nod his head to Margaret and Florence, shoot Florence’s greasy weasel of a husband a glare as cold as the deceased duke’s body, then collect his hat and gloves and be off once more. Forever.
Yet here he was, turning about slowly, taking in the appropriately proportioned gravel yard, the identical outbuildings that flanked the main house, the high brick wallsand thickly varnished gate that blocked them all off from the vermin and villainy of London. Safe and sound in the main house—just as symmetrical as the rest of the grounds, with a pair of staircases on either end of the temple front and the same number of Venetian windows on either side of the main door. He’d spent a fair portion of his life here.
To say he hated it was to give it too much credit. He was indifferent to it.
Satisfied that absence had not made his heart grow the least bit fonder, he mounted the stairs, by all appearances as unbothered as if he were attending a play or taking a walk in Hyde Park. He’d hate to feel something as embarrassing as nostalgia. Not for this place.
For Rose, though… that was a different story altogether. He felt far too much. Yusef wrinkled his nose, recalling their last meeting. She smelled different now—not like rose water. Soap, perhaps? It wouldn’t do. She should always smell of roses. The smell of cook makingbasbousa.
Months ago, he’d assumed himself capable of living without her, of loving her only as a memory, as a name attached to the little paintings he purchased from Arthur Tooth & Sons. He bought them all, each and every one—including her newest, an interesting little view from a window, a departure from her usual subject matter. Yusef had nabbed it the minute the gallery had alerted him to its presence. Then he’d hung it with the rest of them, in his study—his sanctuary, and a private shrine to a lost love.
But now she was found again! He’d not been able to sleep that night, nor the next, for his mind constantly went to her—her strong, steady gaze and her sultry, throaty voice. And he’d take himself in hand, desperate for her but making do with the thought of her lips around his cock and her hair wound around his hand as he gently moved her head against him. And then he’dlie there in the dark, heat burning through his body, his heart full—almost. Not quite yet. He should count himself lucky, he supposed, that he was a patient man.
But even his patience had its limits.
Fiddling with one serpentine cufflink, he followed the butler into the blue room, so named for the hand-woven blue silk velvet that lined the walls. The amount of gilding certainly outweighed the velvet, but then again, that was nearly every room at Marbury House, save the entrance hall with its crystal staircase and numerous chandeliers. He recalled that his younger sisters had imagined it as an ice palace in their youth. Now he knew the whole place to be an ice palace, but of quite a different sort.
“Palgrave,” exclaimed Florence, the spurious tone of her voice feigning either interest or surprise; Yusef did not care which. She appeared thinner and more drawn than Yusef remembered. She’d always taken after her mother, more so than Margaret, with her dainty nose and pale eyes. She and her husband, a tall and gangly sort, sat alongside one another on a giltwood couch upholstered with blue silk embroidered in gold. Neither bothered to stand.
“Well, well, well, the prodigal son has returned,” Florence’s husband said cheekily. Sir David Clewer, an unremarkable and unctuous baronet with a weak chin and weaker morals, reclined into the couch, slinging a lazy arm over its back. Yusef loathed the man, and reveled in making it known via cold, relentless stares much like the one he currently employed. It warmed his heart to see that Sir David’s hairline had retreated from his forehead since he had last seen him, making his ears somehow even more prominent than before.
“Sir David—” Yusef began, but was immediately cut off.
“No, no, it’s Davey. C’mon now, Joseph, we’re family, if you recall.” He glanced at his wife with a wide, showy smile. “Or maybe you don’t. Too much desert sun addling your brains, eh?”
Yusef narrowed his brows, trying to figure out just where the grown man’s need to be addressed by a diminutive ranked in his substantial list of sins.
“His Grace is upstairs. No doubt Crombie will fetch him,” Florence said, with a warning glance for her husband. Sir David either didn’t catch it or chose to ignore it, as he bounded ahead with his verbal drivel.
“He says you’ve been back foryearsnow,” Sir David said, a taunting edge to his words.
“Really?” Yusef strolled over to a chair, walking stick tucked under one arm, and sat. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“You certainly waited a long time.”
“Did I?” Yusef mused, glancing over to the pair of doors opposite where he’d entered. Two years didn’t seem that long by his estimation. “Tell me, Sir David,” he said with a subtle emphasis on the man’s name, “do you still keep a house in Hertfordshire?”
“Gayton? I should say so. Clewers have been there since King Henry’s day.” Sir David straightened up with indignation, adjusting his lapels as he spoke.
