No, she was not. She was all woman in that gown. He could not keep his hands off her, and he stopped trying. He pulled her into an embrace. Her slight, pliable warmth aroused him more. He calculated the hour, and how long this ball would last and whether attending at all was really necessary.
“It is generous of you to care what she will think. However, I command you to wear this dress. There, does that make it easier to be sure again?”
She appeared sultry and fresh at the same time. “It does restore my confidence. I will not care what anyone else thinks. It is good to know that you like it, however. This is my first ball among the ton, and I know they will be judging my fitness to be your wife.” She stepped away from him and looked down at the draping crimson. “He said that you would approve, but I wanted to be sure.”
“He?”
“Your brother,” she said as she left.
The strangest reaction sliced through him. She was gone before he subdued it.
The reaction had not been foreign or new, but having it right now was odd.
Jealousy. That was what flared in him. Jealousy that she had gone to Morgan with her worry before coming to him.
Chapter Fourteen
She refused to be intimidated by Lady Wittonbury’s dramatic expression of forbearance upon seeing the gown. Summerhays liked it. That was all that mattered.
The ball almost overwhelmed her. The silks and flickering lights, the laughter and the music, cluttered her senses. She had met enough ladies through the marchioness and Sebastian that she kept herself occupied on the fringes of conversations. Mostly she admired the gowns and headdresses and concluded that her own ensemble was appropriate enough.
Sebastian danced with her twice, but then Lord Hawkeswell lured him into conversation. She went in search of another familiar face. Suddenly the last one that she ever expected to see was right in front of her.
Roger froze at the same moment she did. They stood there like two porcelain figures on a shelf.
He had not changed at all, and yet he appeared different. Separation allowed her to see him more clearly, the same way time had permitted when he came back from the war.
Love and excitement could not bridge the strangeness now, however. She found herself itemizing the details of his appearance while she waited for hurt and disappointment to twist her heart. Some did, emerging from wherever she had buried it. A good deal of resentment joined it too.
“Audrianna.” His blue eyes warmed in a way that once made her breathless. “You are looking well. You have grown more lovely, I think.”
He looked well too, but then a uniform did that for a man. She wanted to think that his thick, tawny hair had thinned, but it probably had not. “Have you been in London long, Roger? Or are you just visiting?”
“The regiment was moved to Brighton in January, and I availed myself of a short leave.”
Mention of Brighton made her face warm. If he now lived there, he would be aware of every detail of the scandal. He had probably been congratulating himself on his narrow escape.
“Your mother is well?” he asked.
“Yes, most well. You should call on her. Our situation has changed considerably, as you probably know. She no longer holds any anger for you. She would be delighted to see you again.”
His smile wavered on her mention of anger. He stepped closer. “And you, Audrianna? Has your new situation dulled your own anger with me? I hope that it has, and that we can be friends.”
Why? she almost asked him, only she knew the answer. She no longer was a fiancée whose disgraced father would stain an officer’s career and subject him to suspicions or worse. She had become a path to valuable connections.
That disheartened her. It implied that, from the start, Roger’s interest or rejection had not been about her. Even his attentions and proposal were not about love. Roger probably saw the offices of the Board of Ordnance as a good place to go once the war ended, and her father as his means of getting there.
Suddenly he was closer yet. Not too close, but almost. He spoke fast and low. “Please say that you welcome a friendship. You are so beautiful tonight that I can barely think. I have been miserable since you withdrew from our engagement.”
His boldness astonished her. She darted glances left and right to see if someone might overhear. “I can do nothing about your misery, if indeed you experience any. And let us not forget, as we share the memories, that you asked me to break with you. Most cruelly.”
That memory loomed large suddenly. She had anticipated his return home with excitement and relief, only to have him dodge a reunion. When it finally came, he had been formal, hard, and unloving. He had itemized the ways in which her father’s disgrace would reflect on him. He had expressed impatience when she wept.
“Yes, and I have no right to expect other than cruelty from you now in return. I had no choice, however. I think you know that.”
“I do know that. I realized that my belief that you would be better than the world was childish.” She had never hated him for that day, much as she tried to. She’d wept in the weeks that followed for dashed dreams and a hopeless future, but she had understood completely.
He dipped his head and spoke secretively. “I have never stopped loving you, Audrianna, or stopped regretting my cowardice. I lament it all the more seeing you here tonight, looking so . . .” He laughed at himself and gave his head a little shake, as if to clear his dazed brain.
“That is unfortunate for you, and beyond my remedy. If you ask for friendship alone, however, it is yours. If we see each other again, I will not cut you. And if my friendship can benefit you in some way, without my direct agency, I will not deny it if asked about you.”
She walked away, and sought the thick crowd. She hoped her forced poise obscured her dismay at what he had really been requesting.
Who the hell was he?
The tawny-haired man stood one step too close to Audrianna for comfort. Nor did she look like a woman talking to a stranger.
“Did you hear one word I just said, Summerhays?”
“Of course. You were telling me that the Thompsons have hired a runner.” He could not be certain from this distance, but it appeared Audrianna was blushing.
“That was five minutes ago. I was just now saying that this fellow has been asking questions about me. They are making their suspicions explicit, and I am half-inclined to bring suit for criminal slander.”
That captured Sebastian’s attention. Some of it, at least. He kept one eye on the conversation taking place across the ballroom. If that man did not step back, he was going to go over there and—
And what? He noted the anger sparking in his head. Jealousy again. Unwarranted and unexpected. Only this was not with an invalid relative offering reassurance, but over a handsome man with blue eyes that were enjoying that red gown more than they should. Every instinct, especially the ones honed by experience in these matters, said that fellow was bent on seducing her.
“I expect they will want another inquest,” Hawkeswell said. “I do not fancy one where someone impugns me, and accuses me of hurting her.”
“They may only want to have her declared dead.”
“It won’t happen until at least seven years pass. Everyone knows that.”
“Evidence is accumulating that will permit an earlier determination. The shawl last year, and the reticule now. If the runner finds anything else, this will finally end.”
“As long as he does not try to blame me, I will welcome it.”
“He cannot find a way to blame you, so his efforts are for naught if that is the goal. You should ignore him.”
Audrianna was saying something. She appeared much as she had when she rejected his first proposal. The man was not taking it well. That is right. Put the damned scoundrel in his place.
“What the hell is distracting you?” Hawkeswell peered in the direction of Sebastian’s repeated glances. “A new pursuit? So soon? You might let the ink dry on the wedding license first.”
“That fellow over there is after my wife.”
Hawkeswell peered harder. “It is hard to tell from here.”
“I can tell.”
“Recognize the scoundrel’s game, do you?”
“I never pursued women married just a week.”
Hawkeswell laughed. “Ah. Standards. He offends yours, I can tell from your indignant tone. Do you really care, or are you just being one of those boring, possessive apes who is jealous of all his property?”
Did he care? Or was it just possessiveness over a new acquisition? The question caught him up short.
Hawkeswell stepped around, and deliberately blocked the view of Audrianna. “If ever there was a match made at the altar of obligation, it was yours, Summerhays. For her and for you. You know that you will both take lovers sooner or later. My money is on sooner for you, and much later for her. That is how it usually goes.”
“Not always.”
“True, not always. Sometimes the wife remains faithful and bitter. Well, go over there and thrash him, then, so she learns how you expect it to be.”
That would not be necessary. Audrianna came into view again, walking across the chamber’s corner. Alone.
“Sometimes you are an annoying bastard, Hawkeswell.”
“Only when you want to be an ass, Summerhays.”
Audrianna reviewed the ball while Nellie unfastened her gown. It had gone well, she thought. In a crowd of that size, her insignificance became a form of protection. Even so, there had been introductions and even some kind smiles. Perhaps in a few months she would not feel like an intruder at such assemblies, even if she never really believed she belonged.
She reached for the gown’s shoulders, to slide it off.
“Not yet.”
Startled, she looked over her shoulder. Nellie was gone. Sebastian stood in the doorway leading to her chamber, leaning against the jamb, his arms folded and his coats and cravat removed. The candle glow picked out the white of his shirt and the dark of his eyes as he watched her.
If he did not want her to remove the gown, she would not. She could think of nothing else to do instead, so she just stood there with the red silk gaping on her back.
“You are ravishing in that dress. Everyone thought so.”
“In that crush I do not think many noticed me at all.”
“I noticed. I could hardly keep my eyes off you.”
She wondered if his eyes had sought her while Roger pressed his attentions. The notion flustered her enough that she reached back to unclasp her necklace, to hide her dismay. “This gold that you gave me worked well with it, I thought. The emeralds did not, much as I wanted to wear them.”
He came over to help her. His presence warmed her back and soon the necklace dripped into her hand. She took a step toward her dressing table. His arm encircled her and pulled her back. A hot kiss on her neck made her gasp. Slow caresses on the silk covering her breasts made pleasure course through her in fast, rippling currents. The necklace escaped her fingers and fell to the floor.
His hands moved all over that silk. All over her. Firm strokes claimed her stomach and hips and thighs, while his hard body pressed her back. Pleasure crashed into her in high, fast waves that left her without strength. When he teased at her nipples, she could only arch against him for support while her body begged for the torture.
Biting kisses. Feverish, hard, and impatient. He scorched her neck and shoulder and she turned her face to accept more.
Then she was floating, being carried in her daze to her bed. He did not put her in it, but set her feet on the floor. Her legs almost did not hold, and she staggered.
Still embracing her with that controlling arm, still supporting her, his other hand reached for pillows. He made a stack in front of her.
He lifted her slightly. “Kneel here.”
She did not understand, but she obeyed. Then he pressed her body forward until she lay on the bed with the pillows under her hips. She realized the implications of her position. Surprise jolted through her. Deep and low in her body a potent thrill of anticipation coiled tightly.
The silk slid up her legs slowly in a sensual tease. Higher yet, until its watery red bunched at her waist and draped on the bed. He pulled her drawers down to her knees.
A touch. One sure, deep stroke. She could not contain her moan.
He left her like that, exposed and waiting. She pulsed with impatience. The craving was unlike anything she had experienced before. She looked back to see his shirt dropping, then his naked body coming over her.
He took her hard, and she wanted it even harder. He filled her to where that was the only sensation she knew. His thrusts stroked a new hunger that got worse and worse, growing within the pleasure. She wanted this, wanted him and his own angry craving finding release in his lack of restraint. It was mad, feral, and as red as the silk flowing between them.
Sensations tightened and sharpened. Wanton now, mad with need, she lost control. Crying out, urging more, she soared to an unearthly point of intensity that burst in a long, dark scream of exquisite relief.
He slipped the gown off her boneless, sated body, and tossed it aside. It was probably ruined. He did not care.
He pulled the pillows away and set her to rights on the bed, then fell down beside her. He did not sleep. The contentment was too perfect to give up just yet.
She sought his side as if by instinct. He embraced her with his arm and drew her closer still.
The bliss was heavenly, but fleeting. She began stirring in the world again. His mind started thinking once more. It sorted through the night’s events. He lingered on memories of her naked bottom erotically bared and raised, surrounded by a froth of red silk, and her gartered thighs parting in invitation while she waited for him.
Images from the ball pressed on him. One in particular. Two hours ago he would not have asked, and two hours hence he would not either, but raw eroticism forms its own bonds, even if they are temporary.
“Who was he? The man at the ball?”
She went still, right in the middle of a catlike stretch. She might have stopped breathing. He could practically hear her mind snapping alert, choosing her words, deciding whether to lie. Her caution told him everything he needed to know to want to kill the man.
“He is an old friend. He is an army officer.” Silence quaked during a long pause. “We were engaged before he went to France.”
“And then you were not after he returned. What happened?”
“I released him. Time changed things.”
“For you or for him?”
“For us both. It is a common story, I think. Alliances made before a long separation often do not survive it.”
Hardly. They almost always survived it because the woman would not accept the change. Furthermore, she was lying. The scoundrel had broken her heart. That song she had written was about that pain. “Did you release him recently?”
“Over a year ago. Before Christmas last. Is that recently?”
Recent enough for this man to still be a rival.
He would not force her to speak of it any more. He knew how it had been. That coward had asked to be released, so he would not be tainted by her father’s disgrace.
In all her accusations, even at the Two Swords, she had never mentioned this. It had been inside her, though, whenever she blamed him for her family’s misfortune. It still was.
“Do you still love him?” It was hard to ask that question. Harder than it should be. Nor did he like the way he waited for the answer, like a man who would want to be an ass if the answer was the wrong one.
“I could never have married you if I still did. That would not have been honest, for all the practicality of this match. I scrutinized my heart before accepting your offer.”
She had a talent for astonishing him. Not many people, if offered luxury and wealth, position and redemption, would worry about the state of old love before grabbing it.
“Should I have told you all about this befo
re we wed? Are you angry I did not?”
“There was no reason to tell me. It is all in the past and does not signify now.” Except it did, at least enough for him to ask about it. She was good enough not to point that out.
“That is what Daphne says. It was part of the Rule by which we lived. We did not ask about each other’s pasts, because some women have good cause to leave the past far behind.”
“Your lack of curiosity is impressive.”
“I did not say I was not curious. And one does surmise things. But I never asked.”
“It sounds like a stupid rule to me. One of The Rarest Blooms could be a murderer for all you know.”
“I suppose so.” She rose on one arm and looked down at him. Her chestnut hair fell in disheveled waves around her face and shoulders. “We are not called The Rarest Blooms, you know. Only the trade is called that.”
“You are all rare blooms, and I caught the rarest.” He guided her head down so he could kiss her. “And the fairest. Now turn around so I can get those stays off you.”
“I will call for Nellie.”
“You will not.” He turned her around and began unlacing her stays. “I am not leaving yet, Audrianna.”
Chapter Fifteen
Among the luxuries showered on Audrianna with her marriage was her own carriage. Three days later she called for it to be made ready, and directed the coachman to take her to The Rarest Blooms.
She found them all in the greenhouse, sorting through pots of lilies and hyacinths. Through the glass she could see the garden coming to life, with rows of fresh leaves poking up through the soil.
They did not make a fuss on her arrival. She might have returned from giving one of her music lessons. The circle opened and absorbed her, as if she had never left.
“With the season starting, we are very busy,” Lizzie said, by way of explaining Daphne’s distraction with the pots.
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