She sighed, seeming to float away in memory.
“What promise?” Zachary asked, staring at her lax mouth intently. “What did he make you promise?”
“Doesn't matter,” Holly mumbled. “I told him yes, anything to give him peace. I asked for one last kiss. He did…the sweetest kiss…though he was too weak to hold me. A little later his breathing changed…the doctor said it was the death rattle. I held George in my arms and felt the life pass out of him…held him for a long time till he was no longer warm.”
Zachary released her neck and drew the sheet protectively over her bare shoulders. “I'm sorry,” he whispered.
“Later I was angry with him,” Holly confessed, catching at his hand in a childlike gesture. “I've never told that to anyone.”
He was very still, enclosing her fingers in a gentle grip. “Why angry, sweet?”
“Because George…didn't fight at all. He just slipped away…accepted it…like a gentleman. Just slipped away and left me. Wasn't in his nature to fight. How could I blame him for that? But I did.”
I would have fought, Zachary thought, sternly locking the words inside himself. I would have gone toe to toe with the devil himself to stay with you and Rose. I would go down howling and kicking before I let go of what I had.
A weary smile touched her lips. “Now you know…what a bad woman I am.”
Zachary remained leaning over her, watching as she drifted to sleep. She was the best woman he had ever known. His entire being was consumed with one wish, that he could somehow protect her from ever knowing another moment of unhappiness. He fought against the feeling she roused in him, this awful tenderness, but it spread until it had infiltrated every part of him. The desire to go out and find solace in another woman's body had vanished completely. All he wanted was to stay here in this dark room, guarding the sleep of Lady Holland Taylor while she dreamed of her dead husband.
Sorely troubled, Zachary moved off the bed. On impulse, he took Holly's limp hand and lifted it reverently to his lips. He kissed the backs of her fingers, the tender hollow of her palm. Nothing had ever felt as good as the silken texture of her skin against his mouth.
Setting her hand onto the covers with great care, Zachary cast a last wretched glance at her before leaving the room. He had to get out of this place, his own home. He felt confined, trapped, suffocated.
“Master?” Maude waited in the center of the hallway, staring at him with patent suspicion.
“Where is Rose?” Zachary asked curtly.
“She is in the family parlor, playing with Mrs. and Miss Bronson.” Maude frowned uneasily. “If I may ask, sir, what did you do in Lady Holland's room for so many minutes?”
“I ravished her while she was unconscious,” he said gravely. “it took a little longer than I expected.”
“Mr. Bronson,” the maid exclaimed in outrage, “that is a wicked thing to say!”
“Settle your feathers,” he said with a faint smile. “I merely stayed with Lady Holly until she went to sleep. You know I would slit my own throat before causing her any harm.”
Maude gazed at him speculatively. “Yes, sir,” she said after a moment, “I believe I do know that.”
The maid's remark caused Zachary to wonder uncomfortably if his feelings for Holly were becoming that obvious. Dammit, he thought savagely, and brushed past her as he strode away, overwhelmed by the need to escape.
Nine
There were clubs in London to suit any interest…clubs for gentlemen who were avid sportsmen, politicians, philosophers, drinkers, gamblers or skirt-chasers. There were clubs for the rich, the newly arrived, the intelligent, or the well-born. Zachary had been invited to join innumerable clubs that welcomed professional gentlemen, including highly successful merchants, barristers and entrepreneurs. However, he did not want to belong to one of those. He wanted to join a club that had no desire to accept him, a club that was so exclusive and aristocratic that members were allowed only if their grandfathers had once been admitted. Marlow's was the goal he had finally settled on.
At Marlow's a man had only to snap his fingers for something—a drink, a dish of caviar, a woman—and it was brought to him with discreet alacrity. Always the bestquality goods, in the finest surroundings, with never a mention of a man's preferences made to the outside world. The exterior of the club was unremarkable. It was located near the end of St. James's Street, one of a long line of gentlemen's retreats. The white stone and stucco facade was classical in design, pedimented and symmetrical and far from imposing. However, the interior was solidly, expensively English, every wall and ceiling covered in freshly rubbed mahogany, the floors plushly carpeted with a pattern of large octagons of crimson and brown. The leather furniture was heavy and sturdy, and the richly subdued light was spread by wrought-iron lamps and sconces. It had been designed to make a man feel comfortable, with nary a flower or frieze to be seen.
Marlow's was the Olympus of clubs, with some families applying for generation after generation without success. It had taken Zachary three years to gain entrance. With his signature mixture of financial extortion, bribery and behind-the-scenes manipulations, he had managed to get himself admitted, not as a member, but as a permanent “guest” who might come and go whenever he pleased. There were too many aristocrats whose business affairs were entwined with his, men who would lose their fortunes if he began to play with market forces. He had also bought up the debts of a few foolhardy lords, and he had not hesitated to hold those debts over their heads like a whip.
Zachary had enjoyed presenting key members of Marlow's with the choice of losing everything or allowing a mongrel such as himself to patronize the club. Most of them had unwillingly voted to allow him guest status, but there was no mistaking their keen collective desire to be rid of him. He didn't care. He took perverse enjoyment in relaxing in one of the deep leather armchairs and rustling a newspaper before him as the other men did, and warming his feet at the great stone fireplace.
Tonight Zachary especially enjoyed inflicting his presence on the club. Even George Taylor wouldn't have been welcome here, he thought darkly. In fact, the Taylors had probably never thought to apply for Marlow's. Their blood, though blue, wasn't quite blue enough, and God knew they hadn't the money. But Zachary had managed it, even if he was only a “permanent guest” and not quite a member. And now that he had forcibly wedged himself into the upper strata of society, he had made it just a little easier for the next fellow to climb the ladder after him. It was what the aristocrats feared most, that their ranks would be invaded by arrivistes, that their fine lineages would someday no longer be enough to distinguish them.
As Zachary sat before the fireplace and moodily contemplated the dancing flames, a wolf pack of three young men approached him, two seating themselves in nearby chairs, one standing in an insolent posture with one hand braced on his hip. Zachary glanced at the one who stood next to him and suppressed a contemptuous sneer. The earl of Warrington was a self-important ass who hadn't much to recommend him except a distinguished lineage. Upon the recent death of his father, Warrington had inherited a fine title and name, two handsome estates and a mountain of debt, much of it incurred by his own youthful follies. Evidently the old earl had found it difficult to curtail his son's wild spending, much of it done to impress companions that were hardly worth the effort. Now the young Warrington had surrounded himself with friends who fawned and flatered him constantly, thereby increasing his sense of superiority.
“Warrington,” Zachary muttered, barely inclining his head. He acknowledged the other two, Turner and Enfield, without enthusiasm.
“Bronson,” the young earl said with deceptive friendliness, “what a pleasant surprise to find you here.” Warrington was a large, well-built man with a long, narrow face—clearly an aristocratic face, if not exactly a handsome one. He stood and moved with the physical confidence of a man who was proficient in athletics and sporting. “The club has not been graced with your presence for many weeks now,” he continued. “One assumes you have been kept very busy with the new, er…circumstances in your home.”