“It seemed simple at the time.” He paused for a moment before continuing. “Though my uncle and my father had never really gotten along, I didn’t believe I had another choice. Who else was going to employ a penniless viscount?”
He stood and went to the window, looking out into the darkness and saying nothing for several minutes. “I never knew precisely what their conflict was, though I always suspected it had to do with my uncle’s success.” He shook his head as if shaking off a bad memory, then faced her.
He was looking in her direction, but it didn’t seem as if he saw her, but rather that he looked through her.
“My uncle would never admit it, but I know how he longed for entrance into Solomon’s. He’d asked my father to nominate him, which he did. The membership, however, refused my uncle an invitation to their secret club because he studied no specific legend and seemed more interested in those items that were worth the most money. He was furious. Believed my father had intentionally sabotaged him.”
Esme said nothing, but she couldn’t help but hear the familiarity in his words. They’d argued about this very thing just the other day. She could see now that Fielding’s interest in locating antiquities solely for profit was grounded in something far deeper than a shallow quest for funds.
“I suppose he took his own kind of revenge. It wasn’t too long after that my uncle became known as the Raven.” He shrugged, and for a moment he looked at ease, as if he were merely telling her a humorous anecdote. Then the darkness permeated his eyes once again. “I only know what I was told, as I was born about this time. ‘A ruthless treasure seeker, hunting and stealing antiquities for profit,’ that’s what my father always called the Raven.”
Esme set her still-full glass of brandy on the table beside her and leaned forward.
“My father abhorred my uncle’s profession and the way he used antiquities to find fortune. Father was quite clear on that front. ‘Antiquities are to share with the world, not for profit,’ he said. You see, my uncle rarely went about acquiring the antiquities in honest ways. There tended to be a great deal of bribery, conniving, and theft involved.” Fielding gave her a half smile. “I suppose I took my own revenge against my father.” The bitterness was heavy in his voice. “Punishing him for losing our fortune by earning it back through the very means he would have despised.”
He’d been shielding her from the ugliness of his past.
Esme felt her heart soften.
He poured himself another drink and returned to his seat. “My uncle—his real name is David, by the way— came to visit me at school. He was the one who told me about my father’s death and our financial problems. He seemed to have the perfect solution for me to save the family.” Fielding gritted his teeth. “So I went back with him to London, to his grand estate, and he plied me with food and women until I was trained and ready to go out on my own dig.”
He looked so lost, so broken sitting there. She could almost picture the young man he’d been—hurt, abandoned, and overwhelmed with the financial burden of caring for his mother and sister.
“It’s understandable, Fielding, what you did. You were a young man, and your uncle manipulated you. Used your anger toward your father against you.”
“Don’t you see, Esme?” He looked at her then. For the first time all his defenses were stripped away, his heartbreak and betrayal shining clearly in his eyes. “I became one of them. I cheated people. I tricked them.” He took a breath. “I stole things that did not belong to me.”
She wanted to go to him, to pull him into her arms and erase all the horrible memories from his past. “That’s not what you did. You worked for him, and you were nothing but a child.”
“That may be, but had I still been in his employ, it would have been me abducting you that night. Not rescuing you. Have you ever thought of that?”
“But you did rescue me,” she said. “Everything you’ve done, every decision you’ve made, has been for the sake of your family. To save them. People have done worse for lesser reasons.” She smiled. “And you succeeded, didn’t you? I saw your family estate; it was glorious. You did that with the funds you made.”
His face tightened. “Yes, but at what cost?”
It wasn’t really a question, so she said nothing more.
“Seven years I worked for him, and I paid off every one of my father’s debts. Then I went into business on my own.”
“And you no longer steal?” she asked.
“With the exception of that damned box, and the diary,” he added with a weak smile. “No, I don’t.”
“What of your family?” she asked.
“They live here in London. We don’t have much contact since I travel so often.” He held his glass up in a mock toast. “My mother never did approve of my work.”
She stood and walked to him. Placing one hand on his shoulder, she said, “You did what you had to do.”
In the swiftest of movements, he rose and pressed her against him. His hungry kiss tore through her, pleading for everything she had to give.
Did it matter to her if he wanted her, truly wanted her, or if he was simply needing the touch of another to cleanse himself of the harsh memories?
Esme told herself no. That she was a woman of the world. She’d survived kidnapping and was currently living with an ancient curse. If she was ever going to take a lover, it had to be now. It had to be Fielding. When would she ever again have the courage to do such a thing? Besides, she had less than a week before she might die. Before she probably would die.
Pretty words of love mattered not. She wanted him only to warm her bed, to make her a woman in every sense of the word. And in this moment she wanted to be what he needed.
He continued kissing her, his mouth at times angry as he pressed into her. She fed off his urgency, clung to him as desire shook through her.