by Brianna York
“Enjoying the fresh air?” the voice was strident with triumph and Alex felt as if a bucket of icy water had been emptied on her. She had recognized the voice even through the haze of passion, and she was not surprised to see her stepmother standing a foot away, a mocking half-smile on her lips. “Perhaps you are faint and that is why you are sitting on Baron Tyndale’s lap?”
Alex closed her eyes. She knew that Emmeline was enjoying herself immensely and there was nothing at all that she could do explain the situation away or to distract Emmeline from her course.
“Damn,” Forrest said wearily, his voice flat.
She laughed roughly at that. “I shall leave you two to continue what I interrupted in a moment’s time. However, I think that it is my duty as your stepmother, Alexandra, to be certain that I obtain the Baron’s promise to marry you posthaste.”
“Why should he do that, Emmeline?” Alex asked, her eyes still closed.
“Why because he has so completely compromised you, my dear,” Emmeline said with feigned sweetness. “Besides,” she went on, a spiteful note edging into her voice, “two people so passionate cannot really object to marrying one another.”
“You have my promise, Emmeline,” Forrest told her, sounding tired. “Now do go away.”
“You have two days to arrange the marriage,” Emmeline pressed him, her voice suddenly harsh and flat and imperious. “I will not be saddled with damaged goods.”
Alex felt fury bubbling up in her and she made a movement as if to stand up, but Forrest still held her shoulders and he forced her to sit down again. “Two days then.”
“Enjoy the ball,” she told them before flouncing back indoors.
“Alex, I am so sorry,” Forrest said, drawing her against him.
She refused to be held, however and shoved away from him. She rose in a swish of skirts and went to stand at the edge of the balcony, her eyes on the garden below. “As am I, Forrest,” she said sharply.
Forrest winced at her words. He felt the ground he had gained with her slipping away. “I never intended to force you into anything at all,” he assured her, his voice sounding a bit bitter. “You must believe that.”
She did not answer for a long moment, then, “It no longer matters what I do or do not believe Forrest,” she said harshly. She thought of the moment, when he had been kissing her that her mind had cried out in protest of her willful loss of control. She should have known better, should have listened to that voice. With a regretful sigh, she turned back toward the man that moments ago she might have allowed herself to love fully and without reservation. “Shall we find my brother and Rob? I have a headache and wish to go home.”
Forrest heard the chilly distance in her voice and knew that it boded trouble for them. He rose smoothly and offered her his arm. She stared at it for an indecisive moment, then slipped the edges of her fingers onto it and allowed herself to be led back into the ballroom.
Tess and Matthew slipped unnoticed outside. The rush of cooler air was welcome after the stifling interior of the house. “I don’t suppose that we might walk outside a bit?” Tess inquired, blushing a bit at her own boldness but caring not at all.
Matthew grinned at her and altered their course. The chill air caused Tess’s arms to pebble with goosebumps. She clung tighter to Matthew for warmth, allowing him to lead the way.
There was a tiny, narrow garden outside the Rotherford’s house, and Matthew led them into the depths of it, his warm hand covering her slim, white fingers. At the very center of the garden was a tiny gazebo buried in some climbing, flowering plant. Tess ducked inside the gazebo with an effervescent giggle. Matthew thought that the gazebo looked the proper home for a sprite of Tess’s ilk, then smiled at his own whimsical silliness.
“Are you coming?” Tess called. “‘Tis very cozy in here. Very secretive.”
Matthew chuckled low in his throat, eyeing the narrow doorway nearly covered over with voracious tendrils of leaves. “I am simply trying to deduce a way in for someone as large as myself, love.” He had not planned on using the endearment until it left his lips, and it shocked him for a moment. He was still standing in bemusement when Tess reappeared from the depths of the gazebo and caught a hold of his hand.
“Come on!” she demanded, pulling him after her as she ducked back inside the lattice-worked building. Matthew just had time to close his eyes and duck before she had yanked him heedlessly through the narrow, flower-lined doorway. It was quite dark inside, the only light sifting obliquely in through gaps high up in the lattice walls where the plant had not managed to reach as yet. Matthew’s eyes took a moment to adjust before he could see Tess seated on a narrow stone bench in the center of the little building. Brushing leaves off his lapels, he joined her on the bench.
“It is very pretty,” she said musingly, her eyes traveling the room contemplatively. “It’s as if it were designed for lovers. It makes me feel very safe.” The smile that he gave her was the one that she was fast learning indicated fondness. She liked how it lifted the left side of his mouth only. That smile lent him a youthfulness that was at odds with his usual slightly stern, formidable manner.
“Perhaps you should not feel so safe,” Matthew said so softly that she had to strain to hear the words. He slid closer to her, and heard her breath catch in her throat. His eyes traveled across her features, then he reached out with long fingers and plucked a bit of greenery from her hair. “This is a suitable haven for an enchantress like yourself.” His fingers skimmed along the edge of her cheekbone, then slid along the line of her jaw. Cupping her chin in his large palm, he ran his thumb sinuously over her lower lip, and she closed her eyes to steady herself.
“Open your eyes,” he said to her gently, but his tone was no less a command for its gentleness.
She did as she was told, not certain what he would see and unsure that she wished him to see so much of her all at once. She tried to remind herself that she barely knew him, but she could feel nothing but a sense of rightness when she was in his presence.
“Do you know what you are, Tess?” he asked her in that level, gentle voice.
The sound of her nickname on his lips made her shiver with pleasure. His thumb continued to slide from corner to corner of her mouth, and when she spoke, her lips inadvertently closed over it. “No.”
Matthew’s thumb halted abruptly as her lips closed over it. He attempted to steady himself, but it was very hard to do so with her eyes shimmering with desire and her lips pressed to his finger.
“Perfect,” he whispered before tilting her chin up and kissing her. Matthew knew that Tess could not have had much experience with men, but she knew how to kiss him in a way that no other woman ever had. He had expected to find himself in control of the situation, but instead he found himself following her lead. Her hands efficiently undid the buttons of his coat and slid possessively beneath it to explore his shoulders and his back before slipping down to his narrow waist. Matthew released her mouth and kissed her ear, then trailed kisses down her neck and across her collarbone. She arched into the touch of his mouth and leaned back. It was no great distance to press her back against the cool surface of the stone bench and she rejoiced at the feeling of his body pressed full length against hers. She had not expected to enjoy seducing this man in order to steal from him, but from the beginning she had not been able to think of anything besides the exquisite pleasure his presence gave her.
“I had tried to imagine what this would be like,” she whispered as his mouth traveled over her skin.
“Am I meeting expectations?” Matthew inquired, and she detected a hint of his quirky sense of humor in his voice.
She arched her back as his lips grazed the hollow between her neck and her collarbone, then replied, “I was imagining a mere mortal making love to me, Your Grace, not a god.”
Matthew raised his head at that, his face free of expression but his eyes speaking volumes. They glowed in the semi-darkness, seeming to throw the rest of his face into shadow wit
h their brightness. “Do not call me by my title,” he said, his voice toneless in a manner that suggested steely self-control.
“Matthew then,” she agreed, raising a narrow hand to caress the side of his face. “I meant what I said. You are surely not mortal, Matthew. No mortal man could be made so finely.” Her smile was satisfied and confidant.
He returned the smile, his teeth a flash of brilliant white. “No god is complete without his goddess,” he answered her, turning his face into her hand and kissing her palm. Her laughter made Matthew think of the sun burnishing his face on a summer day. He felt clean and pure and lighter than he had in years. He thought of the way that he had envisioned love when he was young and he felt the promise of that perfection in the way that she kissed him. As his hands explored the subtleties of her slender, beautiful body, he knew that he had found another human being that echoed his exultant love of his physical form and its many talents. It was very hard to do, but he forced himself to stop kissing her. Raising his head reluctantly, he sat up, pulling her with him.
“Much as I would love to continue, goddess,” he told her, “It is not done for a god to seduce his goddess in a garden gazebo.”
She smiled ruefully, but she nodded, shaking her tousled hair farther out of its pins. With the common sense that he was coming to admire in her, she re-buttoned his coat and smoothed the worst of the wrinkles from the fine fabric.
“Turn around,” he said to her then. She looked at him skeptically, and he laughed aloud. “I am simply going to right your hair, you minx.” He could not resist dropping a quick kiss on her slightly bruised lips, however. “Now, turn around,” he ordered her, and this time she obeyed.
“How do you come to know your way around a lady’s coiffure?” she asked him, holding her head perfectly still so as not to disturb his work.
“My sister is terribly impatient with her hair and very particular about who handles it,” he informed her through a mouthful of pins. “There has been ample opportunity to learn.” She knew that it was not just his sister that he had aided in such a fashion, but she kept that thought to herself. “There,” he said finally. “I think that shall do quite nicely.”
She turned around, caught up his hand and pressed a kiss to it. “Thank you, Matthew.”
He resisted the urge to kiss her again. He rose and offered his hand to her.
“Now,” he said, glancing ruefully at the narrow entrance to the gazebo. “To get out again.” She laughed aloud, stepping through and holding aside the trailing vines to allow Matthew nearly enough space to fit through after her. “Thank you,” he told her ruefully as he offered her his arm. “I do not know what I would have done without your help.”
She laughed again. “Without my ‘help’ you would not have gone into that gazebo in the first place,” she pointed out.
He laughed at that, slipping his hand over her fingers on his sleeve. “An excellent point, love.”
She sensed that he did not distribute endearments easily. She found his almost off-handed use of an endearment nearly more seductive than his lips or his hands. “I have ever been practical to a fault, Matthew.”
“An attribute that I revere above many others,” he assured her warmly, his fingers tightening over hers momentarily as they strolled closer to the house. “Would you care to go driving in the park tomorrow?” he asked suddenly.
She glanced up at his profile, then said, “I would like that very much,” she replied, trying not to sound as eager as she felt
“Excellent. I shall call for you tomorrow then.”
They made their way back to the ballroom in silence, neither of them wishing to break the intimate serenity that remained from their tryst in the gazebo. The sounds of the orchestra met them first, followed by the reek of mingled perfumes. Matthew braced himself for an unpleasant return to the society of other people. At that moment, Alex rounded the corner and ran headlong into her brother. A bit winded by the force of the impact, Matthew put out a hand and steadied his sister. One look at the expression on her face told him that something terrible had happened.
“Home?” he asked her in a low voice. She nodded, rubbing her forehead distractedly as if she had a headache. “Get your wrap,” he said soothingly to her, releasing Tess and guiding Alex gently toward the door.
Once his duty to his sister was discharged, he turned back to Tess and caught up her hands in his. “I have to take Alex home. Tomorrow is not that far away, is it?” He sounded as if he were trying to reassure himself of that simple fact, and she smiled fondly at him.
“It is not far at all, Matthew.” His mouth quirked, but his eyes told her that he longed to stay with her. However, he raised her hands to his lips and kissed them.
“Until the morning,” he said throatily before whirling around and leaving her. She took a faltering step back and leaned against the wall for a moment, unsure what to feel. She knew that she was dangerously close to loving the man that she was supposed to be punishing for what his family had done to hers, but God help her, how could one not love Matthew? He was elemental and quicksilver and so essentially alive. She was not a fatalist, but she felt that she had been intended for Matthew. She suspected that he thought the same thing about her. Drawing a deep breath, she straightened away from the wall and made herself seek out her brother. No doubt he would be eager to hear that the Duke had asked her to go driving with him.
“I have to locate Forrest and Rob,” Matthew said to Alex after he had helped her on with her wrap. Her saw her hesitate as if she was not certain whether that was acceptable to her, but then she nodded tersely. “You’ll be able to tell me what is the matter when we are home?” he asked her, but she just shrugged as if it mattered not at all one way or another. Clenching his teeth, Matthew left his sister to hunt down his friends.
It did not take him long to find Rob, but when he asked where Forrest was, Rob was unable to tell him. Matthew knew that did not bode well, but he nodded and explained to Rob that Alex wanted to go home. Matthew watched Rob leave the room to wait with Alex, then scanned the room full of people with hopelessness. Forrest was the proverbial needle in a haystack at the moment, and Matthew was not certain where to begin looking for him. He decided to circle the room first, and set off with his shoulders hunched.
After shoving and pushing his way around the entire perimeter of the room, Matthew could safely say that his friend was not amongst the dancers or the wallflowers. Gritting his teeth, he decided to try the refreshment room. Forrest was not there either and Matthew returned to the ballroom with a growing sense of annoyance. He contemplated pushing his way through the throng one more time, then decided against it. Forrest would be able to find his way home.
Alex was staring stonily at her slippers and Robert was cracking his knuckles when Matthew returned to the foyer. “Couldn’t find Forrest,” he apologized quickly, collecting his things from the butler and offering Alex his arm.
“It will be better if he does not ride home with us,” Alex said in a lifeless voice quite unlike her own. Matthew felt chilled by the tone of her voice, and he resisted the urge to gather her closer to him as he led her down the front steps to his waiting carriage.
A few moments later, they were on their way back to the house, the sound of the horse’s trotting hooves ringing with painful loudness against the stifling silence that had spread from corner to corner of the carriage like a thick blanket. Alex stared fixedly out the window, her body radiating a tension that bespoke a grievous injury. Rob kept glancing furtively at Alex, then slightly plaintively at Matthew, as if begging Matthew to break the suffocating quiet. Matthew, however, had never seen his sister in this particular mood, and so he let her alone for the time being, hoping that he would have an idea about how to proceed once they were back home.
The carriage had barely drawn to a halt in the stable yard before Rob bounded out. He turned his face up to the night sky and took a deep breath, trying to shake off the claustrophobic oppression that Alex’s mood had
lent to the ride home. Matthew helped his sister down, but she would not allow herself to be touched after that, leading the way into the house with her head high and her steps as resolute as one going to the gallows might have been. Milton swung the door open for them, taking their things without comment, but Matthew saw the slight lift of one white brow as he took in Alex’s abstracted state.
Matthew opened his mouth to ask Alex if she wished to share a drink with him in the library, but she stalked away down the hall before he could say anything. The rhythmic patter of her feet on the carpeted stairs followed and then silence fell on Matthew, Rob and Matthew’s butler.
Sighing, Matthew turned to Milton. “That will be all, Milton. Goodnight to you.”
“Goodnight, Your Grace,” Milton answered, bowing neatly before leaving Matthew and Rob alone in the foyer.
“Nightcap?” Matthew asked of Rob.
“A wonderful idea,” Rob agreed, following his friend to the library. While Matthew poured them some port, Rob went to stand before the cozy fire in the grate, attempting to remove the chill that the night’s events had cast over him. He sensed that things between Forrest and Alex would only get worse before they got better.
Matthew crossed the room and held out a glass tumbler for his friend to take. Once Rob had done so, he settled himself in a chair, leaning his head back against the high wing-back and closing his eyes.
“Alex and Forrest are brewing trouble of some sort, aren’t they?” Rob asked quietly, sipping at his port.
Matthew sighed and rubbed his eyes distractedly. He was finding it hard to think of trouble amongst his friends with Theresa Dartmoor so firmly at the forefront of his thoughts. “I have never known Alex to act as she did tonight,” he said finally. “It bodes very ill.” At that moment, there was an insistent rapping at the front door. Realizing that he had dismissed Milton for the night, Matthew rose hurriedly to let his mother in.