Her eyelids lowered, and her heels lifted, the distance between their mouths closing with each additional pound of pressure she applied to the tips of her toes. Separated by the slimmest millimeter, his lips parted, his breath a silky feather across her lips.
“A Titian? Or a Botticelli?”
Her eyes startled open. “Yes?”
“Pardon me for saying,” he spoke, the words gravel against his throat, “but it seems that you would bring the past back to life wholesale.”
She blinked, and the spell evaporated. Reality, sharp and precise, stabbed through her. She took one, then another step backward, obeying her instinct to escape the sting of his words.
From a safe distance, her answer emerged hot and most definitely bothered. “And you’ll have to pardon me for saying, Lord St. Alban, that you haven’t the faintest clue of what you speak.” She shuffled another step back and spread her arms wide. “This house is a move in a forward direction.”
“Yet,” he began with frustrating deliberation. The Dutch reputation for stoicism was an absolute fact. Good thing the window wasn’t open. She might be tempted to push him through it. “You would decorate this house in paintings from past centuries, even going so far as to resurrect an old master or two. A future decked out in colors from the past isn’t exactly a move in a forward direction.”
She opened her mouth to issue a scathing retort before closing it. None was coming to save her. She hadn’t avoided his sting. Her weak reply was to retreat another step toward the door, toward escape.
“How about the works of painters living today?” he pressed. The dratted man was like a terrier with a bone. “How about your own pieces?”
A startled laugh burst from her. “My pieces? They aren’t open to public inspection.”
“But in the privacy of your bedroom?”
A sketch of him flashed across her mind. The near obsessive detail with which she’d drawn the firm curve of his lips certainly made it fit for a bedroom. Or a bordello. Or a stack of discards never to see the light of day.
And here she was now, staring at his real, live lips. Her eyes lifted to meet his, and she found there a keen interest. As if every bit of him was attuned to her response.
Well, too bad. She didn’t have to explain this part of herself. Not to him. He hadn’t earned it, and she wasn’t about to give it away. “You think me obsessed with the past?”
“Possibly.” His gaze continued to penetrate, refusing to let her go.
“You know nothing of my obsessions.”
A single eyebrow lifted. “I wouldn’t presume.”
Radiant heat spread through her. The cheek! They both knew his words were the opposite of his thoughts. She must change the subject before she became nothing more than a walking human blush. Perhaps it was time they return to the subject that had brought them together in the first place. “Do you think this a suitable house for entertaining?”
“Pardon?” That too-knowing eyebrow dropped. Good. She’d surprised him.
“I host a monthly art soirée where I showcase a current working artist. Among other things, I need a house that can accommodate up to one hundred guests.”
He shuffled uncomfortably on his feet. “I, uh, might not be the most informed person to ask.”
“But you’re here to help, aren’t you?” she asked, her eyes wide and disingenuous. At last, her footing found purchase on solid ground. “In fact, my next soirée is tomorrow evening.”
~ ~ ~
Jake went stone still. Had he heard those words correctly? Or did he want to hear them so badly that his mind was playing tricks on him?
An invitation to Lady Olivia’s soirée was the opportunity he needed. Except he was expected to dine at the Dowager’s manse tomorrow evening. Miss Fox would be there, too. She’d been invited expressly for the purpose of furthering their acquaintance.
Well, he would have to beg off. There would be other dinners. Finding the thief and securing Mina’s future must take precedence over the stepmother hunt. And one thing was certain: his dealings with Lady Olivia Montfort were an entity altogether separate from that. The Dowager’s matchmaking schemes could wait.
“I would be interested in attending your soirée.”
Lady Olivia’s head cocked to the side, and the mean, little smile he’d caught yesterday as he’d clumsily extricated himself from the tiny desk now curled about her lips. “But I haven’t invited you.”
He blinked. It was true. She hadn’t. He needed to say something, anything, but she’d caught him out. So he did the only sensible thing and remained silent.
One tense second ticked by, then another, and another. At last, she took pity on him. “Of course, with your keen interest in art, and my sketches in particular, you might enjoy it. Guests will begin arriving at eight o’clock.”
She strolled toward the door and stopped. He would have sworn an oath that he’d glimpsed a confident swagger in her step. “And bring Miss Radclyffe. She and Lucy might enjoy an introduction, particularly if they will be attending school together.”
“Lucy attends your parties? It’s my understanding that young ladies aren’t allowed such liberties before they are Out.”
Amusement crinkled the corners of Lady Olivia’s eyes. The words had come out wrong. He sounded like a ninny. Like a Society harebrain.
“Of course she does, my lord. I hadn’t thought you such a stickler for the ton’s rules. It’s somewhat, hmm . . .” she trailed off before pivoting on one heel and striding down the corridor.
Disappointing, he finished for her silently as his ears picked up the echo of her light step trilling down the stairs. An assessment he likely deserved.
It mattered not. He’d secured what he needed: an invitation into her inner circle. An invitation to sniff out the thief. His plan was beginning to bear fruit.
To be sure, he’d somewhat unmanned himself and come across as a Society blockhead—her mean, little smile had assured him of that fact—but he didn’t need her to see him as a man. And he certainly didn’t need to see her as a woman composed of flesh and blood, wants and desires. He didn’t need to see her unbound.
He needed her to lead him to the thief, and, increment by increment, she was doing so. Today was a small victory. In no way should he feel dissatisfied by the idea that he’d disappointed her and that she might now see him as a popinjay.
His blood wasn’t simmering over the thought. He had nothing to prove to her.
He would sharpen his focus on the silver lining. At the last moment she’d returned to being the woman he needed her to be. Not the one who twirled her way through a house on a wave of pure abandon. Not the one whose flick of a tongue tempted him in ways no other ever had. Not the one who revealed the vulnerabilities of her past through a transparent shell of sophistication.
He respected that woman, he might even be in awe of her, the brave choices she’d made, the path she was forging, alone. But he didn’t need that Lady Olivia. He needed her to be hard and difficult, not soft and unguarded.
He needed her to be easy to walk away from.
~ ~ ~
She waited until the echo of his footsteps faded across the foyer and the front door snapped shut. Only then was Olivia able to release the bravado suspended within her lungs.
Not five minutes ago, his scent of cloves had enveloped her, and all she could think was that she wouldn’t mind if his arms enveloped her, too.
No. Nothing so tepid as that. In the privacy of this empty house, she could face her true response to him. Body aflame with desire aching for release, her mind had them horizontal on the bare floorboards, pressing, pulling, tugging, begging for more and more and more until—
Until what? Certain salacious poems and novels detailed quite intimately where such gambols led, but she’d never discov
ered that place for herself, not with Percy.
But with Lord St. Alban? Her intuition told her she’d find out rather quickly. And, oh, how very much she wanted to know.
On a shaky breath, she forced her body into motion, as if in doing so, she could as easily move away from opaque curiosities that nipped at her like tenacious little fleas that wouldn’t leave her be. Her feet crept to the rear of the kitchen, toward the staircase that led up to the communal, secret garden shared with several other townhouses. A cooling outdoor stroll was what she needed.
She ascended the steps and pushed open the door. Her feet came to a dead stop, and the breath caught in her chest. Images conjured up by a too-attractive viscount fled.
Marvelous. No other word captured this garden, ripe with fresh greenery peeking out after an overlong winter and blessedly devoid of another human soul. A narrow footpath wound through the first buds of spring roses not yet in bloom: yellows, pinks, reds, oranges, lavenders. Soon this garden would be a thing of beauty. It was enough to inspire one to take up painting the botanical sort of beauty instead of the human variety.
Now there was a thought. Still life would be so much easier than people. So much more predictable.
She paused beside a vibrant fuchsia rose and brushed her fingertips across petals wound in a tight, velvety bud. Take the life cycle of this rose. From the moment a bee pollinated an ovule to form a seed, its fate was determined. With the proper amount of water, dirt, and sunlight, its path toward dazzling effulgence was secured.
Humans were an altogether different matter, their life cycle fraught with uncertainty and unpredictability. And it seemed to her that they preferred it this way, not knowing what surprise lurked around the corner.
Be it pleasant or unpleasant, it was in a human’s nature to root it out. It could be glory on the battlefield, colors flying high, or a death faked in a war-scarred mountain pass on a sunny afternoon. The cost to self or others rarely figured into these risks that came down to an all-or-nothing scenario, that never considered the black void left to others when it ended on the nothing side.
She approached a small bench and perched on its edge, the green carpet of grass before her extending toward a lively fountain, its bubbling stream a distant, soothing hush. How readily she could return to this dark place.
How dare Lord St. Alban proclaim that she would bring the past wholesale into the present. He wasn’t there, in her mind, when Mariana had delivered the news that Percy was alive. How all she could think was that she wanted—needed—to be set free from a marriage she’d long believed herself liberated from.
Never again would she place her fate in the hands of another. Or again be fooled by the first rush of love, heady, beguiling, and unreliable.
She would choose the life cycle of an English rose. The view might be limited, but her future would be predictable and her own. For here was the other point about a rose: it had thorns. She would employ every last one to keep her independence.
Yet by inviting Lord St. Alban to her monthly soirée, hadn’t she undercut that intention? Hadn’t she stepped into the realm of unpredictability and invited him to further complicate his life with hers?
Tomorrow, she would see him again. Did she want to see him again tomorrow? Did her blood sing through her veins at the thought? It was entirely conceivable that both possibilities were true.
She strove for another controlled breath, but it refused to obey, instead entering her lungs ragged and shallow. Whatever emotions Lord St. Alban stirred within her, she must resolve and silence.
For her present.
For her future.
Chapter 10
Jake crossed Lady Olivia’s threshold and succumbed to the spell she’d cast.
With each step forward, the known world transmogrified into one strange and mysterious, opaque and enchanting. Spellbound partygoers mingled around him and Mina in hushed, almost reverent tones as their vision adjusted to dim, indigo light.
Beside him, Mina went still, observing the room quietly, but without her usual outward restraint. A rapt smile lit across her face, and the corners of her eyes crinkled in what could only be described as delight. She, too, was charmed. “Father, look up.”
He followed the direction of her gaze toward the twenty-foot ceiling. Above their heads, hundreds of tiny candles individually set within faceted glass globes glittered like a twinkling night sky against a ceiling dark as the deep blue night. “Do you recognize the constellations, Father?”
He hadn’t seen her this enthralled by anything since they’d left Singapore. She resembled the child she still was, if only in years. His heart threatened to lift out of his chest. He narrowed his eyes to inspect the starry ceiling more closely. Scattered throughout the tiny glass globes shone larger ones laid out in the pattern of the constellations. “Which ones am I seeing?”
“There is Orion,” she whispered, pointing. “You can tell by the three larger stars of his belt.” Eyes shining brighter than the stars above, she angled her arm to the left. “And there are Orion’s dogs, Canis Major and Canus Minor. Do the animals he hunted continue into the next room?”
As Jake watched Mina surrender to the charm of the soirée, relief washed over him at having brought her, his few misgivings somewhat mollified, if not entirely erased. After all, the thief remained at large. The man could be in this very room, or the next, and it was vital that he cut off the possibility that the man have any interaction with Mina. He hadn’t formed a solid idea about the man’s intentions, except thieves tended not to be upstanding citizens, and he wouldn’t give the man the opportunity to begin a whisper campaign about her past, if that was his intent.
And, then, there was his wobbly relationship with Lady Olivia. A specific quality charged between them that wouldn’t bear up beneath his daughter’s discerning eye.
He resisted the pull of his mind toward yesterday, the empty bedroom, and the almost kiss. In that mad instant, he’d summoned his will and resisted his body’s carnal response. That was the important part. He also understood he wouldn’t be as successful a second time.
“Oh, Father, look over there.”
He followed the tug of Mina’s arm as she guided him to a scene staged in a far corner of the room. It resembled a nativity one might see around Christmas. A pair of white lambs lay nestled comfortably within a bed of hay, curled into each other and fast asleep. As they drew closer, it became apparent that the painting hanging above the lambs was the focal point.
A wolf, not the sort who hunted in a pack and grew fat from its bounty, but rather one who had left his pack long ago, stared malevolently into Jake’s eyes. So lifelike was the painting, he half expected the predator to jump off the canvas and come straight for his throat. He glanced at Mina. “What do you think?”
“Unnerving,” she said, subdued and thoughtful. “I prefer the stars.”
“Shall we pursue them into the next room?”
They’d taken no more than three steps when their progress was cut short by a blond bundle of curls and energy. Lady Olivia’s daughter certainly knew how to make an entrance.
“You must be Miss Radclyffe,” the girl said, her words tripping over themselves in a breathless rush.
Mina nodded. “And you are Miss Bretagne?”
The girl’s lips pulled to the side in a crooked smile. “Egad, finally, we meet. I’ve heard all about you.”
Jake detected a blush brightening Mina’s cheeks and started to get a word in, but he decided that it would be nigh on impossible with the ebullient Miss Bretagne. A personality trait she didn’t in the least share with her cool and collected mother.
“But no one mentioned that you might be the most beautiful girl in all of London.” Miss Bretagne turned toward Jake. “If you do not mind, my lord,” she intoned in a studied, polite voice, unlike the one from momen
ts ago, “I would like to rescue Miss Radclyffe from this boring old party.”
He caught Mina’s eye. “With Miss Radclyffe’s consent, of course.”
“I would be delighted by the pleasure of your company, Miss Bretagne,” Mina said. “Will you lead me through the rest of the rooms? I should like to see your night sky in its entirety.”
“Oh, goody!” Miss Bretagne exclaimed as she slid her arm through Mina’s to better lead her through the crowd. “Oh, and Lord St. Alban?” she called over her shoulder. “My mother says to mingle as you please. It’s an informal affair.”
They turned away, and Jake caught one last snippet of their conversation. “And, Miss Radclyffe, you can drop the Miss Bretagne bit. It’s too ladylike, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be one of those. In fact, technically I’m a bastard. You can call me Lucy.”
“And I’m Mina.”
Lucy grabbed Mina’s hand, and the two girls melted into the crowd, leaving Jake alone in the receiving room. Miss Bretagne, a bastard? He supposed, in the strictest sense, it was true. Still, none in this room, in all of Society, would dare utter that particular truth, not beneath the Duke of Arundel’s own roof.
A servant’s tray caught Jake on the elbow. This was quite the crush. Not on the scale of the Dowager’s, but the room was full enough that one must take care where one stepped. This gathering had a strangely selective feel to it, which made little sense considering the guests appeared to be a mixture of the high and the low.
A few faces struck Jake as familiar in the vague way of social acquaintanceships formed in thirty second introductions at a Salon or soirée. Others bore aspects of the bohemian sort not received in polite Society. Their hues shone just a little brighter; their laughter rang out just a little bolder; and their accents ranged just a little broader. In total, many of the assembled were persons entirely vulgar to the refined eyes of the ton.
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