by Anne Mallory
He paused for a moment, but then it was as if the pause had never been, and his hands reached into the soft edges of her hair and tilted her head back farther. “Never in the shadows.”
His lips touched hers, and it was like the moon had shaken off the lingering collar of darkness and turned on its full light. A first kiss, then a second, and soon a tenth, and the count was lost as his fingers stroked down her neck, pulling around to caress her cheeks. Thumbs grazed her throat and curved over her shoulders.
Igniting feelings that could not be captured on the page, nor in an illustration.
“‘Release me from my bands with the help of your good hands.’”
Her heart picked up speed as he divested her of her domino with a quick flip of his fingers. As he continued to devour her, leaning into her, backing her up a step, leaning her back over something curved and marble, cold against the hot flesh of her elbow. Her own hand curling around his neck and touching the dark hair there, silky and coarse, at odds with itself.
She had never felt anything like the burst of feeling inside of her. The pulses of heat that followed everywhere he touched.
Her head tipped back as his lips traveled down and over her throat. “I believe this means you have won, your lordship.”
“Oh, I like to think of it as we.” He placed a kiss over the beat of her pulse, his lips lingering. “We have won, Miranda.”
His hand wrapped around the back of her nape, lowering her gently so she was lying on the bench, he seated himself next to her, her neck carefully nestled in his hand as he laid her head carefully on the stone.
One hand caressed down the hollow of her throat and over her exposed flesh, down the middle of her chest, her back arching up as if her body was attached to his fingers by strings. Flowing tendrils of flowers swam in her vision, then he was pulling a line down her midsection. Her head tipped back, and she gazed, barely seeing, up at the heavy cracked moon above her as his fingers coasted over the juncture of her legs below.
Her breath caught, and he leaned over her, smiling down at her. “And I assure you that this is only part of the overall seduction. A bite.” His lips grazed her throat. “A promise.” Her chin. “A hope.”
His lips claimed hers once more. His leg was between hers, pressed against her. Where the illicit pictures usually concentrated.
Something built within her at every touch. Something that he had ignited at their first meeting and steadily stoked each day thereafter. Small gasps of sound escaped from her lips.
His eyes connected with hers as he pulled back an inch to look down at her. “Oh, my lost heart.” His lips pulled into the most sensual smile she had ever witnessed. “Such passion under that delicate skin. Barely touched and already reaching for completion.”
His fingers grazed her breasts, over the fabric, her skin scorching beneath the touch. The stars overhead in the dark night sky burned brighter, hotter.
“I think I could go mad touching you. Watching you burn.”
His lips were sweet and hot. Like a dessert she could consume forever. But the heat was hottest below. Against him. He seemed so far away all of a sudden. She pushed against his thigh, and the burn between her legs became a feverish need. Too hot, the flame of it too close.
The stars grew bigger as if they were expanding just so she could reach them.
Never had she thought such a thing could be possible. To touch the stars. To absorb their brilliance and hold it in the palm of her hand. To feel the light flow over her fingers and through her palms, wrists, the curve of her elbow, down to her core. Curling there, pulsing, before bursting out. The waves of it gentle and fierce, the peaks high, but softly arced.
He drew back and she looked into his eyes, the intense darkness pinning her. “Barely touched. I knew the potential lay there. Ever since…”
His lips stayed parted on the syllable. There was something in his eyes, some emotion that caused a wave to spike within her.
“Since—” Thundering noise rang in her ears, drowning out the sound as his lips moved. The words lost in the ring.
She drunkenly wondered if the earth would continue to shake beneath her body. If the ringing would forever exist.
“Downing!” His fingers tightened against her hip at the outside voice. “I’d know that black head of hair anywhere and that dark back stretched over a woman.” A low, drunken whistle accompanied the salutation of another male voice, as the tremors in the earth became heavy footsteps. The viscount might as well have turned to stone for the lack of movement he suddenly possessed.
“Look at the legs on her. Lucky devil. Good gods, man, where do you dig them up?”
His back was to the men, and his face drew to shadow as the moonlight melted around him, hiding his expression from her. “I picked this one up in the back of a dusty shop,” he said, coolly, frostbite in the clip of each syllable.
Miranda’s heart stopped beating.
The man laughed. “Good one. Where did you really find her?”
“Perhaps you aren’t looking in the right places then, if you have to ask.” The viscount’s fingers curved into a fist at her hip, his clipped tones harsh, as if he was about to do someone irreparable harm.
Or maybe just simply to crush her with a careless motion of his perfect fingers.
Another man joined the chortle. “I have something for her to sweep when she’s through with your heavy load.”
Mortification joined the crushing feeling, and she hid her face in the heavy shadows.
“She’s a princess,” one of the men whispered, somewhat drunkenly.
“I know that,” the vocal man snapped. “And I have something for her to wear on her crown when Downing’s done with her.” The man guffawed. “Whoo. Always look for Downing’s scraps, I say.”
The viscount abruptly stood and turned. She immediately swept her legs to the other side of the bench, away from the men, and set about putting her clothing to rights, head tucked down.
Another sudden shaking of the earth had her looking up and behind her. Only the viscount’s tight back remained in view, the other men gone in a rush of feet. He turned, a distant and cold expression on his face. Forbidding and fierce. The fleeting glimpse of the same dark emotion that had crossed his face during his mother’s visit flitted through his eyes again.
He held out a hand. “Come.”
She stared at it for a moment, the remaining warm feelings receding in the cool night.
His hand moved slightly, still outstretched. “It was the fastest way to do it. I apologize.” His tone was cool, formal, his eyes stormy, but distant.
The fastest way to do what? Get rid of them? She studied his hand a moment more, then met his eyes. “But are you being disingenuous in your apology this time as well?”
His hand dropped. He stayed silent for a second, then raised his hand back to her.
“I’ve never meant it more.”
He looked as if he were at war with himself. As if his words had multiple meanings. She watched him another moment, nodded, and took his hand. His fingers wrapped around hers, firmly, a caress of his thumb to the back of her hand, then tugged her forward.
They strode back along the path of the walk. Two steps from stepping out of the moonlight and back into the lamplight, he turned to her. He secured her mask once more, his fingers lingering on a lock of hair, his knuckles brushing her cheek. She unconsciously leaned into the touch. The tips of his fingers stroked lightly, gently, then curled into a fist as he looked away.
He took her hand and strode into the merriment once more. But the languid pace of earlier was gone, an urgency to be gone and on to other things in its place.
Faces and colors blended together as they strode through the crowd. Miranda barely processed any of it through the aftermath of confusion and embarrassment. The vestiges of tightly-wound thrill.
Benjamin jumped down and opened the carriage door immediately upon seeing them, and she stumbled inside.
A strange silence pe
rvaded the interior. The viscount’s words as she’d drawn shaky breaths in the garden at complete odds with his demeanor at present.
“An odd night for this much moonlight,” the viscount said, almost contemplatively, his face still closed in the flickering low lamplight and shadows as they began to move.
“Yes. And as it is, the moonlight hides as much as it reveals,” she said in a near whisper, the conflicting, heavy feeling draped over the air.
He reached forward and touched the curl at her temple, pulling it around the mask, brushing her cheek. “Each time a new lure.”
She wished she could see his eyes, so dark in the shadows of the closed carriage.
“‘In this bare island by your spell.’” His fingers slipped from her cheek and fell to the padded bench, the Shakespearean spell formed by his third such quote lingered behind. She clasped her hands tightly together, uncertainty and longing running through her in equal measures.
It didn’t take long for the carriage to reach her uncle’s store. The early-evening and late-night traffic had cleared and the late, late-night traffic had not yet started.
The viscount’s hand reached out again, then drew back. “Good evening, Miss Chase.”
She felt a divide open and stretch between them, though she didn’t understand it, as she stepped through the portal and onto the common pavement below.
Chapter 12
Dear Mistress Chase,
Never let anyone tell you how to feel. And never let seduction threaten your good sense.
Eleutherios
Miranda walked blearily into the front of the shop the next morning to see Georgette sporting a new bonnet and pelisse, bag clutched in her hand, badgering Miranda’s uncle as he was leaning over his ledgers, and teasing Peter standing wide-eyed to the side.
Georgette smiled like a cat cornering a bird as soon as she spotted her. “Miranda!”
Miranda murmured greetings to everyone. She had gotten in well past her usual bedtime, then tossed and turned all night. Thoughts of the night had run through her head over and over again. What she could have done differently, what she might have said at the end, what had happened in the garden under the moonlight. Both wonderful physical memories and uneasy sifting thoughts.
“Come.” Georgette took Miranda’s arm. “Let’s leave your uncle to his figures and dear Mr. Higgins to his manly handling of the counter.” She steered her toward the back table behind the stacks. The paper was tucked beneath her arm. Miranda stared at it in sudden dread, all of her uneasy thoughts overriding every single dreamy one.
Her friend waited until they were out of earshot before pouncing. “So? Last night? I stopped by to see you, and it seems that you hadn’t yet returned home. And it was going on ten in the evening.”
She pulled out a chair and gave Miranda a push, seating herself on the other side and leaning across the table without even removing her coat, the paper sliding onto the top of the wood. “And you look like the cat dragged you in screaming this morning.”
“I just woke,” she admitted.
Georgette stared. “Just woke? It’s a good thing your uncle barely has a thought about stricture. He just waved last night away and said you were a good girl and likely around somewhere. He must have had no notion when you returned, especially with you looking as you do this morning. Even my father would have been pacing, and I get away with everything. Where were you? What did you do? Tell me everything.”
Miranda rubbed the back of her neck and laughed uncomfortably at the dichotomy between her uncle’s words and her actions the previous night. “Your timing is always impeccable.”
“I know.” Georgette gave a wave of her hand. “Now speak.”
“I was out.”
Georgette stared, then waved her to speak again.
“I went to Vauxhall.”
“On a masquerade night? You?” Her friend’s brows rose like feathers caught on a stiff wind. “Oh, there is a story here.” She quickly divested herself of her fashionable coat, her new bonnet covering the paper. Her merchant father always made sure she had the best.
Though even Georgette would have been dumb-founded by the gown hanging upstairs.
“Now what were you doing at the gardens on a night when the naughty come out to play?”
“Dining?”
Georgette’s mouth turned up. “This is delicious. Downing took you to dinner at the gardens. Then into the dark walks, mmm?”
“I didn’t say that,” she said in a weak voice.
Georgette’s mouth dropped for a second before she regained herself. “He did take you there? Good Lord.”
Miranda’s brows drew together, and she cast a look around the corner to make sure they were still out of earshot. “Well, first you assume it so, then you say it as if you’d never believe it possible.”
“You have to admit, darling, surprise over that response is warranted under the circumstances. You are hardly one to walk the dark path with a gentleman.” She whistled. “But what a one to begin with.”
“I hardly stepped onto the path.” He had lifted her above the path and laid her out over it. “Merely to observe a flowering bush.” At very, very close range. Upside down.
“You went onto the dark paths?” Georgette leaned forward, mouth gaping.
“You just said—”
Georgette wildly waved her words away. “Tell me everything. Leave nothing out.”
“He was a perfect gentleman.” A perfectly naughty gentleman. “There was nothing unseemly about it.” One of the seams of her gown had been ensnared by a bramble when his leg had gone between hers, lifting against her. “The moonlight was exceptionally bright.” Bright against bared skin and naked desire.
Georgette looked disappointed, and to Miranda’s relief and chagrin looked as if she believed her. “Why did he invite you then?”
“I don’t know.” Miranda shifted nervously. “What did you do last night?”
“I went to the Mortons’ revel. It was a bit of a bore though. Dinner next week should prove far more exciting. There are some new men in town.” She shifted her bonnet, the paper shifting into view. “I am sure there is something about Vauxhall in the paper. Anything exciting happen other than you stepping a toe onto an illicit chip?” She pulled the paper fully into eyeshot.
Miranda watched the paper with a sudden panic she had never quite experienced upon looking at a printed piece. “But I want to hear more of your night.”
“I’m sparing you the rehashing of an uneventful time. I’d rather hear about your time with the delicious viscount. I’m sure that I can get at least a modicum of naughtiness from your mind in regards to him.” Georgette gave her a wink and opened the paper perfectly to the gossip section.
Miranda watched in terror as Georgette scoured the page. “Oh, the Cirque Diamant players were there? Drat. I can’t believe I went to the Mortons’ revel instead. I’ve been wanting to see them. Sold out for their entire run. How were they?”
“Um…”
“Um?” Georgette raised a brow. “I think your late night has hampered your ability to utter a coherent sentence.”
“They were very good.”
“They were very good. That’s it?”
Miranda saw the shining window of opportunity. “Oh, they were beyond good. Jugglers and acrobats. And the stunts. Why, they were beyond marvelous. Let me tell you all about it.”
“You wretched friend, seeing them and nearly taking dark walks, and here I have to pull it from you.”
“Oh, I’m just tired. Exhausted from watching them. Let me tell you all about it.” Miranda warmed to the topic. “There was a man who could do two flips and land on another’s shoulders.”
Georgette looked impressed. Then her finger started to move down the column.
Miranda leaned forward, attempting to block her view. “Don’t you want to hear more?”
“I can listen and read at the same time. Keep talking.” She looked back to the page.
Miran
da leaned in more and put a hand on the paper. “And there was a fire-breather who could—”
“Hold on.” Georgette shooed her hands away. “I saw something about a princess. Hold your thought.”
The panic became a very real itch under her flesh, clawing at her like a dozen spider bites all in the same region of skin.
“But it’s quite an important tale!”
However, Georgette was no longer listening. She peeled Miranda’s fingers away. “Look here. A Russian princess? Oh!” She pointed at the evil text. “Did you see her?”
Her friend didn’t wait for the answer. “Dressed in the finest silk. Oh, the description is divine. A masked princess. How wonderful. They go on and on about her for an entire two paragraphs.” She tapped the page, lifting it slightly. Miranda had never wanted to read a paragraph more, nor less. “I do so hope I will catch a glimpse of her.”
“Oh,” Miranda said faintly. “I’m sure you will.”
“Really? Why?” But before Miranda could respond, Georgette’s finger stopped. “Sitting with Lord D.?” She blinked. “Engaging with him in the bushes, legs in the air?”
“Really?” Miranda said, even more faintly. “Not very princesslike. And all of these Lord D.’s lately in the papers.”
Georgette slowly looked up at her. “All three of them that would qualify for such a thing.”
“Three? Surely there are more than three who would qualify.”
“There are three. I looked it up last week, remember?” She kept her eyes pinned to Miranda. “It says briefly too that Lord Dillingham was seen with the marchioness. And I know Lord Dustin is in Yorkshire at the moment.”
“Oh?”
Georgette drummed her fingers against the page, then calmly folded her hands together.
“Georgette?” Miranda asked tentatively.
“Shh, don’t interrupt my thought process. I am contemplating precisely how I’m going to murder you for your silence.”
Miranda sighed.
Her friend stuck one forefinger out and touched her other to it in a ticking fashion. “Firstly, I want to see the dress.”