by Anne Mallory
She moved away from him and over to the stack she must have been sorting before he’d entered. He had entered to see her flipping through the book, brows furrowed, lower lip drawn between her teeth, engrossed. He’d simply stood and watched her for a long moment, breathing the scene in before he had become too curious over what she was reading.
Too curious period, he had held himself away too long.
“The week has been…interminable.” Endless, really.
“Oh?” She lifted one book, then another, the hair nearest her face falling against her cheeks, hiding her expression. “That is a shame.” Her voice was pleasant, cool.
She took the books to the shelves and placed them in different spots, then returned to the stack.
The side of his mouth curled in amusement. “Are you trying to ignore me?”
“I am merely performing the task you set for me, your lordship.”
A week of dealing with Colin, their mother, his other siblings, Charlotte Chatsworth and her father, Dillingham and Easton. His father.
That had been the most trying. Always was. For all her obvious faults and flakiness, his mother was easy to anticipate. Her motives transparent. His father’s never had been.
“And also trying to ignore me, I think.” He took her hand in his, slowly pulling the book from her fingers. A week of hating himself for how he had left her. For what he had done. “Are you wroth with me?”
“Why would I be?”
“For not reappearing after a lovely night in the gardens?”
For ignoring her for reasons he dared not name. Decisions made in the dark of night to perhaps change his course and embark on a new tack. Fear, an emotion he didn’t often deal with, lacing his thoughts. That he might make an irreparable mess of the whole thing and lose her completely.
“I have no reason to be angry with you. You are free to do as you please.” She looked away from him. “There is no commitment between us, other than for my work here.” She looked back to him, actual sincerity beneath the lingering irritation. “It was a nice dinner, and I thank you for taking me.”
That she was thanking him made him feel like the lowest cad. He was the lowest cad.
“You make it sound as if I simply sold you some shoes.”
“I am expressing my gratitude.” Fire lit in her eyes. “I am not the disingenuous one.”
“You are wroth with me.” He was pleased at the decided snipe in her voice. Fire he could work with. If she broke into tears, he just might offer to stick a sword in his own gut.
She pursed her lips and gathered another stack. “Why ever would I be angry with you?”
“Why don’t you tell me.”
She tilted her head for a second as if thinking, then said, “No,” and continued her trek.
“No?”
“No.”
“Well, that hardly seems fair.”
“Are you speaking to me of fairness, your lordship?”
He raised a brow. “Is it a subject that is disallowed?”
“You deliberately seduced me in the garden.”
He smiled. “That is hardly newsworthy or aggravating. I have been trying to seduce you for weeks now.” Months.
“No, not that. You nefariously seduced me.”
“Nefariously seduced you?” His lips quirked automatically.
“You did it to create an overriding scandal.”
Ice crept into his bones. He knew he shouldn’t have left her to her own devices for so long. She was far too perceptive. It was part of what had drawn him to her in the first place.
That and the keen desire to be someone better. To be the apple of her eye, not to let the pleasure of that go to some anonymous source.
“You think that I feel the need to grace the gossip pages?”
She tapped her finger against the book in her hand. “I don’t know. Do you?”
“No. In fact, I’ll retire to the country. Live a pleasant bare existence.” He tilted his head at her snort. “If only you’ll but come with me.”
Ah. There was the color he loved, blooming under her skin. The jump in her pulse. The lovely awareness in her eyes.
“You are not amusing.”
“No?”
“No. Is this part of your plan to stave off boredom? To tug me to and fro? To use me in order to divert the gossip?”
“May I use you in such a manner? Spread you fully over the paper, crinkling the pages beneath you?”
She colored more deeply and lifted her chin. “You probably could, should you set your mind to it. I am hardly much of a challenge to the likes of you.”
She discounted herself far too often. He wanted to dress her in silks and satins, dress her in nothing at all. Teach her all of the ways that she was intoxicating.
There was too much passion there waiting to be released. And perhaps if he were just seeking a physical game—like he had planned at first—then she wouldn’t pose much of a challenge. He could have methodically continued to seduce her. Turned the entire scene at Vauxhall to furthering his cause. The masked, illicit encounter. Freedom for her to be scandalous.
He could have approached her again the next day. Probably had his way with her right here on the library floor, or in the chair, or up against the wall. Thrusting into her, sating his physical thirst for her, swallowing every lovely cry she was sure to utter, watching her eyes drunk with passion.
But he hadn’t been able to do it. The path of seduction had grown murky and deadly. He no longer wanted a simple physical response from her. He had been deluding himself into thinking that he ever did.
And he didn’t want his own response to be simply physical. Therein lay the true danger now.
So he had banned himself from the house and given his parents their ultimatums. Then he’d gone to plant the seeds for a mad alternative quest. The start of his own destruction, surely. For any sort of permanence never ended well.
He smiled without humor, and her brows drew together at the expression. He smoothed out the lines of his face intentionally.
“There is still our challenge.”
“Did you seduce your governess before she finished your lessons on mathematics?” She plopped a stack of books onto a shelf. “The week has long since passed. And you won.”
“Not in my heart, I didn’t.” Not in the seeds of his demise.
“If I believed in its existence, perhaps I could concur.”
“Oh, it is there. Shriveled and bound. Just waiting for you to set it free.”
“You are an unrepentant tease, your lordship.”
“As I said previously, a tease doesn’t follow through.” He stretched a finger along a strip of softly bound leather.
“An emotional tease. You are physically quite happy to follow through, but you make far too many empty promises concerning your feelings.”
It took effort to call forth a sunny smile, a breezy, languid look. He nodded to the stacks of unopened gift boxes in the corner. “Did you not enjoy my presents?”
She gave him a dark look. “I question their existence.”
“A token of my affection. A nod to your acceptance of the challenge.”
“A handwritten note would have sufficed.”
Of course it would have. For above all else, he knew she treasured such. But it was the one thing that was out of the question.
“Not a declaration of my affections?” he said lightly.
Her eyes narrowed.
He walked toward her. Her back and shoulders tightened as he neared. “Come with me.”
“No.” But he saw the shiver there at her nape.
“You do not even know where I wish to take you.”
“I am sure that I will be at a disadvantage no matter where it is.”
“If so, it would be a change. You more frequently have the advantage over me.”
Honest and irritated disbelief darkened her features as she crossed her arms. In truth, his advantage was only maintained by her not knowing how accurate his stateme
nt was.
He kept his voice light. “Then come with me because I promise you will find it a treat.”
“I’m busy.” She pointed at the stacks around her.
He smiled lazily. “And I’m the boss.”
Her shoulders tightened further and she turned. He wished he could see her face. She thumped the books down, obviously irritated if the less-than-gentle way they hit the others below them was any indication. Her face was unreadable when she faced him once more. Her expression clear.
It unnerved him. Was he corrupting her already then? Dragging her into his hell?
“Very well.”
Miranda didn’t trust the slow smile that spread across his face, not for a second. Not with the darkness reflected in his eyes, beneath the temptation. As if he was mortally wounded and needed her to find the injury, to heal the harm.
He turned, and she followed him from the room. Down the hall. Her ire thumped along with the beat of her too-fast heart, and her brows drew together as he entered the room that had been designated as hers.
If he thought he was going to finish what he had started in the gardens of Vauxhall right now, then she would quickly disabuse him of the notion.
She hadn’t been in the room since that night. There had hardly been any reason to visit after all. And she had felt distinctly as if she didn’t belong.
He touched the armoire at the side, sliding his fingers along the wood, crooking them into the notch and opening it. A selection of beautiful gowns hung inside.
They all looked to be her size. As if they had been continuously delivered throughout the week, populating the belly of the wooden chamber as soon as they were sewn.
Some seamstress at Madame Galland’s assuredly had pricked and sore fingers. And a fatter purse.
She swallowed, touching her own fingers together through her gloves. Feeling the urge to touch the gowns even as she pushed against the idea of it all.
“This one.” His thumbs smoothed a path down the fine green muslin of the gown on the left. He rubbed the edge between the pads of his fingers, then lifted and draped it against her like a lady’s maid might. Except the sweep of the dress rested across the bared upper skin of her throat, the hanger dangling over her shoulder, sliding down a fraction, the back of his knuckles caressing her…all of it in a way that no servant would dare. “Yes, perfect.”
She cleared her suddenly dry throat. “Perfect for what, your lordship?”
“I really think you should call me Maximilian. Or Max. Or Maxim, if you like.”
He said it lightly, the offering of the name only his family dared call him, but there was something there under the words. A thread that caused her ire a momentary pause.
“Given names are used only by those quite familiar to each other.” Her ire crept back in. “Such as those who might speak every day.”
The edges of his lips curved invitingly. “I really must make you wroth with me more often.” He let the dress slip farther down, the edge of the hanger lightly tickling the sensitive pulse of her throat. “And I must rectify your notion that we aren’t yet familiar with each other. I plan to be quite familiar with you, Miranda.”
The way he said it made her swallow again. As if he didn’t plan to sample her but to make her his entire meal.
“Wear this.”
“Why?” Her voice was a little too high. “Where are we going?”
“It hardly matters, does it?” He tipped his head. “You don’t plan to fall to my nefarious tactics.” He leaned toward her. “Consider it an apology, our destination. I promise that I will be a good boy.”
He casually dropped a slim book onto the table. “I lifted this from Colin when he wasn’t looking. Perhaps you might enjoy it.”
She stared at the slim book, a compilation of Shakespearean sonnets in lovely, expensively bound leather. “Won’t your brother miss it?”
“It was undoubtedly for an assignment. He wouldn’t be caught holding a book of sonnets he hadn’t written himself.” His lips pulled into a sharp smile. “I’ll buy him another should he grouse.” He pulled a finger along the leather. “Come with me, Miranda. Willingly. On your own.”
She pushed at the siren call. Pulled forth every rational thought to which she could lay claim. “I will hardly finish cataloging your library if we go out.”
“Then I suppose I will be able to keep you indefinitely after all.” There was something to his words…she could almost believe him. He walked backward from the room, a lazy regard underpinned by an intensity that stole her breath. “Soon perhaps I will, Miranda.”
Miranda stared after him. Everything in her tangled and confused. She looked down at the gown.
She shouldn’t let him toss her to and fro. She should set the gown back in the armoire and calmly walk from the room.
“His lordship has excellent timing. The old bat is busy. I can do you up as I wish.”
Galina must have been waiting on the other side of the door to have appeared so quickly. Waiting, listening for her cue.
Miranda was nonplussed for a second as she again realized that people in the house were likely listening to all of their conversations.
Galina had thawed a bit toward her in the days since Miranda had forced herself upon the staff in the kitchens. But she was still cool, her nature seemingly that way in general.
The maid gestured her to a chair. “Knew that his lordship would return to you. I’ve been eyeing a few styles just for when he’d do so.”
Miranda blinked, then swallowed. “Oh?”
The maid said nothing, simply pointed to the chair again.
“You listen,” Miranda said softly. “In the halls.”
The maid watched her for a moment. “Yes.” She seemed to consider her words. “Which is why I knew he’d be back for you, unlike any of the others we’ve had.”
Miranda went scarlet.
The maid’s eyes narrowed. “You aren’t like any of the others. And they—” She tilted her head. “They were for show.”
She gestured to the chair again, more imperiously. Miranda sat bemusedly, but her attention remained focused on the maid.
“For show?”
“Do not fear that we listen to each licentious gasp to determine such.” There was a hint of a smile about her mouth.
Miranda colored again, still unbelieving that she could do so. But there it was in the cheval glass, rosy splotches on her cheeks.
The maid leaned forward and lifted a brush. “But it is obvious that he’s never cared for any of the others. That there is something about you.”
Miranda stared into the mirror without focus. “I am a simple shopgirl.”
“Not so simple now, no?”
“I suppose not,” she said softly, as the maid lifted her hair, examining how it fell.
The path of least resistance in the short term was to remain in the chair, to let the maid dress her and go willingly with the viscount. But it was also fraught with the most long-term risk. For she could simply return to the library, demand that he leave her alone, and go on her way, mostly unchanged.
Never knowing what lay at the end of the adventure. In his arms. The challenge changing from one of physically or intellectually seducing the other party to becoming part of the fabric of his life—at least for a short time.
Galina smoothly pinned a section of hair. “One becomes used to listening when one is a servant. There is a rhythm to things here. But there has been a different rhythm for the past few weeks. Pauses and footsteps. Boards creaking. Even the muffled sound of shoes on a rug. On edge.” Her smile was darkly self-deprecating. “One becomes used to listening when one is a servant.”
“One becomes used to living in the pages of a book when one is a shopgirl in a bookstore,” Miranda answered lightly.
She could see the maid’s pursed lips through the reflection of the mirror. She thought for a moment that the woman wouldn’t answer. “You read a lot?” Galina finally asked.
“Yes. It’s an esc
ape into another world.” She tried to keep her words light instead of sad, thoughts of her family in her head. “Sometimes that is the best part of a hard day.”
“Not much time to escape when you are a servant.”
“But reason to escape, no?”
The maid tugged her hair a little roughly, then gave a muffled apology, her fingers gentling. “Perhaps.”
She finished dressing Miranda’s hair and helped her into the day dress. It was a simple style, but lovely. Lovelier than anything she had worn other than the Vauxhall dress. The maid put on the finishing touches, pinching here and there, making everything just right. She reminded Miranda of the seamstress, Madame Galland.
“Thank you, Miss Lence.”
The maid said nothing, tying the last bow. She nodded and stepped away to let Miranda pass, then tapped the brush suddenly, examining it, not looking up. “Of course, we do overhear things beyond what our masters might like us to hear. Things that might cause us to extend a wary warning, even in the face of it all.”
Miranda paused and tilted her head in acknowledgment. She knew that any endeavor she undertook with the viscount was fraught with peril of all sorts. The last week had shown her that if nothing else.
She touched the maid’s hand. “Thank you.”
The maid looked back, her face carefully blank. “It is silly to extend one’s view so high. But…” The woman looked to the side. At the book the viscount had left. His brother’s book. “But perhaps we are all hoping that it is not without hope to do so.”
Miranda opened her mouth in surprise, but the maid excused herself and strode from the room, leaving her standing next to the table, dressed in her strange new finery. More conflicted than before.
She lifted the book and was directed by a hall servant back to the library. The viscount was inside, paging through a slim volume. He snapped it shut and stood when she entered. He sauntered toward her, lifting her free hand.
“A rose in winter.”
“It is spring.”
“But it is the winter of my heart.” His lips grazed her wrist.
She removed her hand and smoothed it along the bow of her dress, feeling the beautiful silk of the glove rubbing against the fabric, concentrating on something other than his heated eyes.