Have Yourself a Merry Little Scandal: a Christmas collection of Historical Romance (Have Yourself a Merry Little... Book 1)
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She floated.
Her body went limp.
She had to close her eyes.
Needed...a moment.
“I have you little bird.” He whispered, then kissed her, oh so soft, so gentle that heat pricked her eyes.
His arms and the wall were the only things keeping her from crumpling into a pile of ashes on the floor.
Her Russian murmured words, muttered things she didn’t understand but made the center of her chest glow. He kissed her eyes, her nose, her cheek.
Were all rakes so gentle?
Did they all make you feel like the most precious thing in their world?
Or had he simply read her well? Saw what she had never tasted and lured her with it? The soft gentleness she had never experienced from a lover and longed for.
Most likely.
Most likely that was what he always did.
The thoughts sliced into her. They shouldn’t. She knew the kind of man she dallied with. Yet every part of her wanted something so beautiful to be real. Even if it wasn’t.
As clarity returned, her words, the ridiculous lines of poetry like some babbling half-wit chased her with shame. He would laugh to himself about that, she was sure. A woman who threw out fragments of poems as he made her come.
His lips touched hers. “Welcome back. I think your wings are singed.” He muttered and she could tell he smiled. Those devastating lips touched hers again. Moved in that alluring gentle yet firm way.
She kept her lips still. It hurt, it ripped through her like an inner wail, but she opened her eyes and took that step, moved sideways and out from under those devil lips.
He moved so he still faced her.
They both breathed in irregular breaths.
She averted her head.
“Little bird.” His hand turned her chin, so she faced him.
“I am not a little bird.” She scowled, feeling far too vulnerable, and stepped out of his touch.
“Seraphina, there is nothing to be shy about. No shame in what we just did.”
She took another step away.
Around her the world was not quite as she’d left it. It was suddenly more vibrant, more real than real. The burgundy wallpaper flocked with velvet appeared as if the flocking were the softest finest moss. The burnished hue of the gas lamps shone more golden; their glow transforming dust motes into pure gold suspended in the air.
And him.
Ilya stood, the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. She could no longer simply see him—she felt him. She didn’t just see his lips—she tasted them, his chest was a sensation on her palms, hard, strong, and warm. His fingers, oh god, his fingers were ghosts over her sex.
“Seraphina…” The sound of her name from those remarkable lips was a Russian purr.
Seph waved a hand as if the last few moments were nothing. As if what they’d just done was ordinary, a slip that wouldn’t happen again. As if it wasn’t the most glorious thing her body had experienced with another person. As if it wasn’t the closest thing she’d ever tasted to pure bliss. As if she wouldn’t write about it for the rest of her life.
His eyes were dark pools of ink in his face and his hands curled in tight fists by his side. She felt rather than saw him hold himself back from stepping forward, from reaching out to draw her close. Her body cried for him to do it, even as her mind forced her to take another step back out of reach.
From behind, a familiar hand clasped her arm. “You shouldn’t have come back here.”
Marsden. His voice sounded stiff; the words short. He was not happy.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said, half turning, half not, her gaze locked with Ilya’s like keeping an eye on a dangerous animal as she made her retreat.
“Nonsense.” Marsden’s voice was tight. “Your curiosity will get you in big trouble one of these days!”
It already had.
The men stared at each other.
“You shouldn’t have brought her.” The Russian…Ilya said.
“I go where I please,” she piped up and was ignored.
“It’s none of your concern.” Marsden growled back at Ilya and drew her away.
Chapter 4
Marsden tucked her russet cape around her and in moments they were through a side entrance, stepping outside into the chill of the night air. Marsden’s carriage waited, horses moving restlessly on the cobbled stones, the driver blowing on his gloved hands before seeing them and jumping down to open the carriage door. She bet this was where it always waited, that Marsden more often than not left the establishment from this side door after visiting one of the rooms.
She had never envied him more.
He looked left and right then ushered her across the lane, opened the carriage door handing her inside.
“Did he touch you?” Marsden growled as he climbed into the carriage and sat on the bench opposite her. The driver closed the carriage door and, in a few moments,, the sound of his voice filtered through the carriage as he sounded the horses to start. The carriage lurched forward, then quickly settled into a steady rhythm as it started the trip home.
Seph wasn’t sure how to answer and the silence made him swear.
“I’ll deal with him,” he said.
“No.” How did you ethically deal with a man she had clutched against and begged for release?
“No what?”
“No, it’s alright. Nothing of importance happened.” Just the birth of her sexual self.
“Your chin is red.”
“That doesn’t mean anything?” Her gloved hand covered her chin, whatever redness sat there was a delicious reminder of how his cheeks had rubbed, rough against her skin as he’d kissed her senseless.
“It means he kissed you.”
She smiled despite herself. “I might have muttered poetry.”
“That good?” Marsden smirked and settled back against the bench. “I’m still going to have a word with him.”
She ignored him. He’d settle down after a sleep. He looked pent-up. Firmly wound. Her interruption had clearly stopped things too soon.
His fingers tapped a rhythm on the carriage bench beside him.
“Do people mutter things…like poetry?” Seph asked.
Marsden huffed. “If you’re lucky. Poetry, song, lewd words, curses, and pleas. Guttural cries…”
Seph held up her hand. “Enough. I see. So, nothing too odd then?”
“Barking is known to add to the moment.”
She leaned over and slapped his knees with her purse. “Now you go too far.”
“Have I?” He laughed and the tension about her mutterings with Ilya, eased. Somewhat.
“How do people face each other after a tryst?”
“Ah. Your nothing has suddenly become a tryst. I am definitely having words with him.”
“But really what does it mean? How should I behave when I see him next?”
“Seph, a man like him…” The light from the buildings and lamp posts they passed outside flickered over Marsden’s face, would be flickering over hers as well. Neither would truly be able to read the other’s expression. “You can’t expect more than what the moment offers.”
“I know that!” Frustration rolled through her. She knew it. Of course, she did. But what was wrong with sitting with the pleasure just a little longer. Surely a person was entitled to bath in the illusion of it for a little while at least.
“Then just be yourself. Don’t let it be any more than the pleasure it was.”
Minutes passed before he spoke in the silence where she knew they both recalled the other moment of the evening, how she’d last seen him.
“He’s right.” Marsden said.
“I was a married woman, nothing I saw shocked me.”
Marsden shook his head and gave his rather lopsided grin. “The old Duke never did that in his life.”
She blushed. “I am not naive. I have read Sappho.”
His eyes softened making her scowl at him. “But you are, Sep
h.”
The carriage slowed and turned.
“Well I don’t want to be.” She rearranged her cape. “Tonight, was exhilarating, exciting. I feel alive. As if I was sleeping for years and am just now starting to wake up.”
Marsden said nothing, a look on his face, one that said he was happy for her.
The lamp light cast shadows as the carriage bounced and swayed across cobbled streets. Their eyes met and she smiled. They had been friends since childhood. He’d been the first to kiss her, a young neighbor with dark Heathcliff hair and moodiness, who was not all bravado but a real friend.
Seph lifted an eyebrow, even in the flickering light he would be able to read her.
Marsden groaned and rubbed his face. “What? What do you want to know?”
“I just wondered...the gag…the tied hands? I don’t understand…”
He was visibly conflicted.
“Marsden.” She gave him a little nudge with her slipper.
“You should never have married that old man, Seph.”
“Would things have been so different? I don’t see what you did being part of the ‘stiff upper lip’ bedroom activities most wives face.”
His face softened. “No. No it wouldn’t have been too much different.”
Bother. He saw too much, knew too much of what her married life had been like.
When her husband passed there was not a lot she could recall to miss about him. He was often not home, worked late. There were no real shared interests. He thought whatever she did was quaint, her poetry was useless. She’d stood by the grave, dried eyed, and threw the first handful of dirt. Sobbing mourners followed, sisters, aunts, his infirm mother. They each lamented a man who was generous with his money and able to hold the world and all its realities at bay—who would do that for them now? As each shovel load of dirt incarcerated him below the ground, it was as if the weight of years lifted from her shoulders and the sun finally broke through to thaw a long-forgotten girl.
What had she done with the newfound freedom? Not much. Until tonight.
Seph gave his leg another nudge with her foot. Marsden shook his head but that all-to-frequent indulgent look was on his face and she knew she’d won.
“It’s not uncommon to play games, we all play games in the salons and parlors, it’s much the same, only exceedingly more pleasurable.”
She swallowed; her face hot as warmth rushed over her skin.
“And you like it…playing these games?”
His teeth shone white in the soft light of the carriage. “What do you think?”
“Darn it,” her voice was strained. “I haven’t had sex at all…”
He laughed. “I am sure you have had plenty of sex…what you saw was a glimpse into a world where people take their pleasure and their fantasies seriously.”
“The domain of rakes and libertines, I take it.” Of the Russian.
Marsden lifted and dropped his shoulders. “Take a lover and find out.”
Lover.
“Maybe the Russian?” He suggested looking at her a little too intently.
Now it was her turn to groan, Ilya was far, far too dangerous. “He irritates me.”
Marsden grinned with that annoying, knowing look of his.
“What did he do after he whisked you away from my scandalous vignette?”
If her face had not flushed before it certainly did now.
She waved her hand around in a bored meandering gesture. “I think he thought it was a kiss, but I couldn’t tell.”
“Ha!” Marsden barked a laugh. “Anything else. You looked rather flushed when I saw you.”
Seph widened her eyes. “If he did, I can’t rightly recall. Something that made me quote the weather.”
Marsden barked a laugh. “Cruel, Seph, cruel.”
The carriage rocked as the silence settled. The streetlamps they passed casting small bursts of light. A weight pressed against the center of her chest, a heaviness that thickened. She’d married as her father had requested, to an older man who made few demands in bed. He died, a winter flu that went deep into his lungs. She was still of childbearing age, could still have a family, but the trouble was she already knew too much about married life to want to be a wife. The men who were decent were boring and the men she liked she wouldn’t trust. Yet tonight showed her she was hungry for more and she’d have to either find a compromise or stay exactly where she was.
“You like him.” Marsden said from the other side of the carriage. “Why not have a dalliance?”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t.”
“I recall you kicking Bobby Blackwell in the shins when he tried to kiss you. I know you didn’t do that to your Prince. You deserve to kick your heels up before you decide what to do next.” Their gazes met across the carriage. “Besides,” Marsden’s expression grew mischievous, “I know he would be very good at playing my kind of games…” Marsden smirked, “especially if he already has you babbling poetry.”
She gave him another small kick with her foot.
The gossip column in the morning paper read:
Were the Petroski brothers in town on special business? Reportedly, a well-to-do Miss might be keeping secrets the rest of London is yet to remember? Or is it the elusive and shockingly beautiful widow haunting the salons recently that has brought them here?
Chapter 5
Last night Ilya saw her at The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, dressed in a daring mandarin velvet dress with jet beads cascading down her bodice. Large ostrich plumes were held to her pale golden hair with marcasite clasps. She glowed in the crowd, like a shimmering sunset.
Stunning.
Seraphina would shine at any event in the Russian court.
Ilya found a way to sidle up to her, a moment in the thick interval crowd when the people around her were turned in conversation elsewhere. Champagne glasses on round trays circulated around the room as pre-orders were delivered. And white jacketed serving staff took trays laden with refreshments and nibbles to private boxes.
Seraphina faced away from him when he leaned in.
Then paused.
Took a moment to breathe her in, to feel the warmth of her so close and yet so far from receiving his touch.
“A tongue can do the most remarkable things.” Ilya whispered in her perfectly formed ear. “Your friend Marsden would have wriggled his like the vibrato of the soprano in the last act.”
She moved too slowly, gave herself away. She knew it was him. He grinned, knowing she had been aware of him in the room, aware of his approach.
“Yours obviously can’t stay still in your mouth.” Her voice was perfectly bored, but he knew the telltale signs. Her hand flicked her fan a little too fast. Her body lost its natural stance, was stiff, waiting.
A perfectly glorious ripple of satisfaction went through him. He grabbed a whiskey as a tray whizzed past. “My tongue, should it touch you, little bird, would be like the girl with the red shoes, bedeviled, dancing ceaselessly, ardently until…the cry of death.”
The pulse at her clavicle beat faster, her skin pinked and he grew thick in his trousers. Images of le petite mort, hers on his tongue, feeling her tender flesh as it pulsed and wept over his lips flickered in his mind. “Would you like to die at the thrust of my tongue, Seraphina? I wish you would.”
The bell chimed the start of the next act. Marsden scowled at him across the crowded room as he made his way over. A proprietary act, but not as her lover.
“I’m sorry did you say something?” She turned and faced him. The telltale signs of recognition or recall of that particular sexual act were not in her eyes. The beautiful Seraphina had never died le petite mort on any man’s tongue.
But she would.
Ilya bowed. “Think of me when you hear the vibrato. I understand the second act is particularly vigorous.”
She looked bored, her gaze seemingly searching for someone in the throng behind him. So alluring with her cool distain and all-too-innocent eyes.
And as much as he wanted to watch her from across the theatre the next time the soprano did their vibrato, the family business needed attending to. And so a night of antics at the salon was required.
Three hours later Demetri walked into Madam Debuverey’s salon and into the second room where Ilya lounged.
“Oh, finally brother, I thought you had fallen for your betrothed after all. Four and a half bloody hours. How slow can a man eat?” Ilya ground out, frustration tapping through him as he sat through the banal night. He’d spent most of it imagining ways he could take the mandarin dress off Seraphina. It was not well-known, but dresses which buttoned up at the side allowed a man a delicious amount of access to the body underneath before the garment needed to come off.
Demetri lowered himself on the large burgundy chesterfield and sat next to him.
“It will take as long as it takes, brother.”
“I suggest the duration is shorter than the date of the wedding.” Ilya raised his hand and motioned for another drink and the same for his brother. A Christmas elf dressed in a tailored red and green velvet outfit with ridiculous elven ears, brought over a tray with their drinks along with a small plate of savory snacks.
“What have I missed?” Demetri surveyed the group lounging around a small stage. He appeared decidedly distracted.
“We are playing theatre.” Ilya said. “Romeo and Juliet, we have paused at the balcony scene to determine ‘who is the best kisser’.” He smirked. “I am at least taking my task seriously; you seem to be dragging your heels.”
Demetri scowled. “It’s not as easy as I had anticipated.”
Just then a man and a woman in a slightly disheveled state came from behind a curtained alcove to the hoots and howls from the room. A small apothecary bottle lay on its side. They all clapped and repeated ‘Spin, spin, spin,’ as two more were selected to go behind the curtain.