Portrait of a Scotsman by Evie Dunmore

Chapter 34

He woke to the pleasurable sensation of a soft hand on his hard cock and drowsy kisses trailing down the side of his neck. He was dreaming, undoubtedly. He reached for her and gave a soft grunt of surprise when his palms met bare, sleep-flushed skin. She was naked under the covers with him.

“In need of affirming life?” Lucian murmured, still finding his bearings.

“Yes,” Harriet whispered, warm and breathless against his ear. “Please affirm.” A flower-scented strand of her hair brushed over his nose.

“Wait.” He turned her in his arms and pulled her back into the curve of his body, relishing the feel of her skin against his from his chest to his toes. She rolled her hips in the loose yet deeply needy way inherent to pleasure in the twilight hours, and his sigh of relief mingled with hers when he gave her what she wanted. He nipped at the soft curve of her neck. “Lift your thigh and rest it on top of mine.”

“Why?” she asked, and a moment later, she gave a happy moan as the shift in position did the answering.

He loved her slowly, never once easing his embrace, and he held on tighter when she came apart around him.

As the glow of languid ecstasy faded, a gray morning crept through the curtains and the events of the previous days claimed their space between them. They lay at a silent little distance from each other, listening to London waking.

Lucian propped himself up on his elbow. “In the study yesterday,” he said. “How did you know to drop to the floor and cry watch out?”

Harriet shuddered, and she rolled onto her back as if to bodily evade the memory. “I trusted you would do … something,” she said. “I thought if I could give you a second, you would put it to good use.”

“I’m glad you trusted me,” he said gruffly.

She looked up with an opaque expression in her brown eyes that he couldn’t place.

“I spoke in anger in Drummuir,” she said.

“You had reason to be angry,” he said, eager to forget the unpleasant episode, and made to kiss her.

She stayed him with a hand to his chest. “What will you do with him?” she said. “With Matthews?”

“Hand him to the sheriff,” he said. “Why?”

She hesitated. “He might hang.”

“Yes,” he said, “there is a good chance of that.” He took her chin between his fingers and turned her face to examine the scratch on her cheekbone. It looked to be healing well.

“Must you notify the sheriff?” she asked.

He released her, astonished. “What else do you propose?”

She gave a small shrug. “He said and did horrid things. And yet the thought of him hanging feels wrong.”

“He meant to abduct you. He could have killed you; he certainly was moments from shooting me,” he said, and when her mournful expression did not change, “He was too pathetic to make a success of his plans, but he did have those plans.”

She plucked at invisible specks of lint on the bedsheet. “I know.”

He couldn’t quite believe it. He was within his rights, if not obligated, to hand a criminal to the police.

But it was also true that the raw, broken place inside him where his scruples used to go to die had changed shape. The jagged edges had smoothed; the pits had filled up. It made sending people to their death a bothersome affair. And Matthews … try as he might, he felt no hatred for his former assistant. His only concern was for his wife.

“If I don’t hand him to law enforcement, the gambling establishment will send men after him because I no longer pay,” he said. “That’s rough business.”

Harriet tilted her head. “Hence, sending him to the gallows would do him a kindness?”

“No,” he said. “But I want to know you’re safe.”

She was silent.

“I could offer him a check and a one-way ticket to a place outside Britain,” he said, “and if he ever sets a foot on British shores again, I’ll kill him. Or Ritchie’s men will. Does that agree with your conscience?”

It seemed it did, because she leaned in to kiss his chest, then his mouth. Then she said she wanted breakfast. He wanted to make love to her again, to fill her so completely that it would drive away the lingering, preoccupied expression at the back of her eyes, but she slipped from his arms and left.

The next day, she emerged from her room late, nearly at noon. She looked well rested and was in a bright mood, because she had arranged to visit her friends in Bedford Street, and so he decided to use the day to gain control over his neglected business affairs.

His thoughts began straying to her in the afternoon, and when the hours passed into evening and she didn’t show, he went into her bedchamber, just to stand in a place where he could feel her presence. He was quickly disappointed: she had spent few days in this room throughout their marriage, and it showed: she wasn’t visible in any of the details; there were no personal touches such as her choice of paintings or pillows or vases full of her favorite flowers. However, her scent lingered around the vanity table, and it stopped him in his tracks. He closed his eyes to breathe in the sweet, mouthwatering fragrance, and it was as though he were inhaling sunlight. What grace, to be alive, he thought. That he could still smell, see, and touch. That he could still touch her.

When he made to leave, a glint of silver amid the papers strewn across the vanity table caught his attention. He smiled. On one of the papers lay the love spoon he had gifted her, attached to a sturdy chain. She must have decided to wear it at last.

The warmth in his chest dissipated when he realized the nature of the paper underneath the pendant: it was a letter of passage from the British consulate. Allowing Harriet free passage, to France. The icy blast of a premonition hit him. Indeed, there was a one-way railway ticket to Calais. And a list of items to be packed, in Harriet’s hand. His stomach lurched. He backed away from the desk as though it held a poisonous snake.

It was late evening when Harriet entered his bedchamber, rosy-cheeked and a little tousled, as though she had rushed up the stairs to reach him quickly. She looked confused when he remained in his armchair instead of rising to greet her, and her gaze fell on the grate next to him, where the fire had long gone cold.

“Did I keep you waiting terribly long?” she asked, out of breath. “I had such a lovely time, I forgot the hour.”

He held up her ticket to France. “Are you planning a holiday?” he said. “Or are you planning to leave me?”