by Eloisa James
With one swift gesture, he drew her into the entrance to the maze and around the first curve. There were no burning pots here, no torches to illuminate the darkness. It was thick and velvety against their faces.
“Gabriel,” Kate said. To his relief, he heard an amused thread of laughter in her voice. “What are you doing?”
“Come,” he said, and took her hand more firmly, turning into the darkness.
“I cannot,” she protested. “My glass slippers . . . I can’t walk on this grass!”
Without hesitation, he dropped to his knees before her and took one small foot in his hand. “My lady.”
She raised her foot, and he slipped the shoe from her toes. Silently he touched her other leg, and took that slipper as well, placing them carefully on a bench that stood just inside the entrance to the maze.
“I feel like a child, dancing on the lawn in my stockings,” Kate said, a deep hum of pleasure in her voice.
With his left hand just touching the hedge and his right tightly holding hers, he paced the maze, seeing the turns in his head. It was really quite simple, if one knew the way.
Kate followed behind, stumbling a bit once, but he held her upright.
“We’re here.” They turned the last corner and found the center. It was bathed in moonlight, and without the torch pots to compete, the air was silvery, washing the hedges and the laughing mer-horses with fairy dust.
“It looks like magic,” Kate said, drifting to the fountain. “What keeps the water bursting from these statues?”
“It’s a matter of gravity and the weight of the water held underneath. If I turn this crank”—he demonstrated—“the water turns to a mere dribble.”
“I would love to sit, but I’m afraid the spray has dampened the stone,” Kate said ruefully, “and I mustn’t crease my dress.”
She turned and looked up at him, but he had no words. He was afraid that nothing would come from his mouth but the most rudimentary words, the panting, thrusting gasps that men and women share in deepest intimacy.
Instead of speech, he reached out and ran a hand down the curve of her cheek. He felt the smoothness of her skin, the very edge of her curving smile. He replaced his fingers with his mouth.
“Gabriel,” she said, turning her face from his.
His heart jolted. “I must.”
“You may not.”
“Kate!” It was pain to his heart even to say her name. At the same time, it was like honey in his mouth, sweet and familiar, like a lullaby singing in his heart.
“Oh, Gabriel,” she whispered.
“Give me one last time,” he begged. “Please, please. I beg you.”
“I—” She stopped and started again. “I’m afraid, Gabriel. You’ll break my heart.”
“Mine is already broken.”
There, the truth of it was out, between them. Her eyes glistened with something wetter than moonlight.
He kissed her in an act of possession. There was no other way to describe it, the way they fell together into some nameless darkness, some impudent fairy-tale space where he was no prince, and she no lady.
Just two bodies, aroused, warm, mad for each other.
“My gown,” she murmured, some time later. Her eyes glowed with a wicked kind of glee. “This is so wrong.”
He reached out, wrenched the crank, and the gurgle of water entirely stopped. Then he showed her how to put her hands on the head of a wet, laughing mer-horse. Carefully, carefully, he raised layer after layer of fabric, throwing them over her back until her beautiful bottom lay beneath his hands, clad only in a pair of drawers so delicate that he could see her skin through them.
He hesitated, as if what lay before him was too beautiful for human hands. Then he bared her to the moonlight, leaned over, pressing against her, his hands curving naturally to her breasts.
She hadn’t said a word, but the moment his fingers brushed a nipple she let out a cry and pushed back against him. It was like being caught in a snowstorm and temporarily losing his sight; it felt as if all sensation came from his hands, his body only.
The sweetness of her breast, the tight bud of her nipple, the ragged pant that shook her body, the deep curve of buttock against him, the heaven that lay below.
He caressed her again and she cried again. He let his fingers drift down into her sweet valley and she sobbed and arched back.
His hand shook as he covered himself with a French letter. And then . . . they slid together as if they had made love like this a hundred times, as if their bodies were designed for this moment. He thrust deep; she arched with a cry that flew into the night sky.
It was almost too much. Gabriel clenched his teeth and concentrated on breaching her body without losing himself, letting her delicate perfume, the sweet honey of her skin, the ragged sound of her breathing come into his memory so that he could keep it—keep her—forever.
For a time there was nothing but the sound of their bodies meeting in silken, near violent pleasure, a sob from Kate, a groan from Gabriel . . .
But it was too deep, too greedy to last. He started pumping faster, and she was crying now, arching hard against him, and then they broke, together, shattering time and silence and any molecule of space between them, molding their bodies into one flesh, one heart.
He stayed like that, bent over her like any animal with its mate, until she made a small noise and straightened against him.
At that moment, a hissing noise sounded in the distance and, as they both turned to watch, an explosion was followed by a rain of emerald-green sparks, falling back to earth.
Kate was shaking her skirts down but she stopped, her eyes meeting his. His heart thumped in his chest. “I’m so glad,” she said, “that those fireworks didn’t happen a minute or two ago. It would have been absurd.”
Another explosion . . . Ruby sparks melted, turned to pink, and died.
He couldn’t bring himself to answer her, to say a word. Instead he helped her put up her hair, his fingers lingering in its thick gold, stealing a last touch. Then he took her hand and led her from the center of the maze.
She raised her face to his as they turned the last corner. He didn’t move, so she had to find his mouth with her own. She took—or was it a gift?—that last kiss with cool deliberation, as if she were giving him a message that he could not interpret.
In the last patch of darkness, he knelt again at her feet, genuflecting as would any medieval knight to his lady.
Her small foot rested trustingly in his hand as he slipped her shoe over the arch of her foot. Then the other, and he had to stand up. He couldn’t stay there in the darkness forever.
“Kate,” he said, once standing. He reached out for her again, his grip tightening on her arms.
The orchestra began playing . . . they had moved down beside the lake, and the notes of a waltz swept into the quiet night like a joyful wind. He shifted his grip, one hand dropping to her waist.
“You said,” she whispered, “anyone who saw us waltzing would know that we were lovers.”
“No,” he said fiercely. “They will know only that I am in love with you. Please, dance with me, Kate.”
She put her hand in his, smiled, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. Without saying a word, he held her hand high and swept her into a slow waltz. She didn’t follow perfectly, so he pulled her tight, showed her silently how to feel by the press of his body which way he was about to turn.
Sure enough . . . she learned, she learned. By a moment later they danced together as if the air had decided to embrace the wind, as if they were two blossoms caught on a warm draft.
The music came to an end. Gabriel had not taken his eyes from her face, never glanced over his shoulder to see whether they had an audience. He didn’t care.
She curtsied, held out her hand to be kissed.
Gabriel stayed in the shadow of the hedge, watching Kate pick her way across the grass toward Henry, who turned toward her and gave her a swift kiss.
The ev
ening seemed endless. Finally they were summoned back to the drawing room by Wick, who had footmen circulating with hot drinks for those who were chilled, and tiny, delectable pastries for those who were hungry. Gabriel stayed at Tatiana’s side. He felt like an automaton, but there he stayed, escorting her from place to place, laughing when she giggled, smiling when she smiled.
Dragging his eyes away from the bright flame that was Kate.
Suddenly he realized that Tatiana was addressing him. “Your Highness,” she repeated.
“Forgive me,” he said, turning back. Ormskirk was standing beside Kate next to the fireplace; he was leaning over Kate . . . It looked as if Kate was saying goodbye to Henry and Leo, but that couldn’t be. She couldn’t be leaving . . . he had to see her tomorrow morning, see her one more time.
Tatiana looked up at him. She was a tiny thing, but there was a firmness to her chin and a strength in her eyes. “Would you be so kind as to escort me to my chamber?”
“Of course,” Gabriel said, turning his back on Kate.
Tatiana placed her fingers delicately on his arm and they began to walk from the room. She had exquisite manners, smiling and nodding at various guests, even as she said: “There is a sadness in you, prince.”
He cleared his throat. “I am sure you misinterpret—”
“No,” she said. They had reached the door, then the entryway. She drew him into the shadow, to the right of the great arched door standing open to the courtyard. “I do not misinterpret. I see what I see.”
Gabriel had no idea what he was supposed to say.
“I saw you waltzing with that lovely woman. I suppose,” she said thoughtfully, “that you have a story.”
He blinked at her.
“A love story,” she clarified. “You have a story, or so we call it. Many, oh many, of my relatives have a story in their past. We are passionate, we Cossacks. We love to be in love. And it seems to me that you have such a story as well.”
There didn’t seem to be any reason to deny it. Tatiana was not angry, nor was she particularly upset. “Something of the sort,” he admitted.
Tatiana nodded. Her eyes were sympathetic, very kind. “We in Kuban know our fairy stories,” she said.
“As do I,” he answered, knowing exactly what she was saying. “All stories come to an end.” He leaned down and dropped a kiss on her nose. “You are a very sweet person, princess.”
There was a faint sound, like a muffled sob, a scuffle of a jeweled heel . . . he raised his head in just enough time to see the flash of cream taffeta disappear through the arch to his right.
He swore and started after Kate, never thinking of what it must look like to Tatiana, to anyone who watched. She was flying across the courtyard, through the arch leading to the outer courtyard steps, without looking back.
He ran faster.
But he was too late.
The courtyard shone empty in the moonlight. In the near distance he could hear the trundling sound of carriage wheels starting down the gravel drive.
Too late, too late, too late.
He took one step forward, thinking to run after the carriage, to run mad, madder than he already was. His foot brushed something.
He bent down.
It was one of Kate’s glass slippers. It shimmered in his hand, as delicate and absurd as any bit of feminine nonsense he’d ever seen in his life.
He said it aloud, because there was no reason to be silent. “I am—undone. She has undone me.”
And his hand closed around the glass slipper.
Thirty-nine
Kate’s godmother’s house was exceptionally comfortable: cozy, expensive, and slightly dissipated. “Just like Coco,” Henry pointed out. They were lounging in her dressing room, whose walls were covered in watered silk, hand-painted with rather improbable coral-colored primroses. “She and I both have the air of a très-coquette. Leo says that my little darling graced a brothel in her past life.”
Kate looked over at Coco, who was perfectly groomed and ornamented, as of this morning, with a sprinkling of amethysts. “She’s too self-conscious to be a good trollop. A man could tell with one glance that she only wanted the coin.”
“That’s the nature of the job,” Henry said, very sensibly. “Now listen, darling.”
Kate got up and walked to the window, knowing from the tone in Henry’s voice that she wouldn’t want to listen. The dressing room window looked to the front of the house, onto a small public garden, windswept and rather forlorn. “Winter is drawing in,” she said. “The chestnut trees are all tinged with gold.”
“Don’t try to distract me with palavering about nature,” Henry said. “You know I wouldn’t know a chestnut from a conker. What I want to say, darling, is that you need to stop it.”
Kate stared out the window, her shoulders tight, hunched against the truth of it, against the warmth in her godmother’s voice. Her head hurt. Her head always hurt these days. “Chestnuts are conkers,” she said.
Henry ignored that feeble digression. “It’s been over a month,” she said. “Wait! Even longer.”
“Well over a month,” Kate said drearily. “Forty-one days, if you want an exact number.”
“Forty-one days of you in a vile temper,” Henry said. “That’s enough.”
Kate came and knelt by the arm of Henry’s low chair. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t mean to be so sharp.”
“I know you can’t help it, up to a point.” Henry tapped her on the chin with one beringed finger. “That point has come.”
“I don’t mean to—have I really been in a vile temper?”
“Did you just imply that my darling Coco would fail as a night walker?” Henry demanded.
Kate couldn’t stop a weak chuckle. “I did.”
“I can assure you that she would be in the highest demand, as indeed would I be, should we have taken up such an insalubrious occupation. And last night at dinner, did you not inform Lady Chesterfield that her daughter was as adorable as a newborn calf?”
“She is,” Kate said feebly. “Same absurd expression on both of them.”
“And finally,” Henry concluded, “did you not advise Leo that his sister’s hair was now the exact color of horse manure in the spring?”
“But I didn’t say so to her.”
“Thank God for small favors.”
“It’s just that particular shade of olive green,” Kate said. “I’ve never seen it anywhere else in nature.”
“It wasn’t a question of nature, as any fool would know. The poor woman wanted to turn her straw to gold and it didn’t work out. I’m not saying you haven’t been a pleasure to live with, in some respects. I particularly enjoyed your characterization of the regent as Aaron’s rod with a bend in the middle. Though really, one shouldn’t joke about royalty, no matter how limp they are reputed to be.”
“I’m sorry,” Kate said, kissing Henry on the cheek again. “I’ve been horrible to live with. I know it.”
“It would be better if you would at least leave the house now and then. I miss going to the theater.”
“I will,” she promised.
“Tonight,” Henry said, folding her arms. “Tonight you are reentering society, Kate.”
“I’ve never really been in it, have I?”
“All the more reason that you start now.”
Kate clambered up from her knees, feeling very old and sad. She walked back over to the window, where twilight was drawing in over the chestnuts, and the last rays of sun were slanting through the boughs. Oddly enough, there was a bit of bustle in the park, which was generally as lonesome as a stone.
“You did the right thing,” Henry announced, from behind her.
Kate turned around. Her godmother hadn’t said a word about Gabriel, not since . . . not for forty-one days.
“You gave him a chance to man up, and he couldn’t do it.”
“He had responsibilities.”
Henry snorted. “You’re better off without him. And you we
re definitely right not to tell him about the possibility you had a dowry. Just look how large that dowry turned out to be. I expect that you could sense intuitively that it would make all the difference to him, and I can’t imagine a worse reason for him to break his betrothal.”
“I didn’t sense it. I just thought . . . I hoped. Stupidly, I suppose.” It had been forty-one days, and she was stupid to keep a tiny flame of hope alive, merely because there had been no marriage announcement for Princess Tatiana. But who knew when that marriage was supposed to take place?
For all she knew, they had returned to Russia to consecrate their union there.
“One should never hope that men will rise to the occasion,” Henry said sadly. “They don’t, as a matter of course.”
Kate looked at the window again. Her shoulders were stiff and achy from holding in the pain and the tears. But she was so sick of weeping, so sick of wondering why Gabriel was the way he was.
It was like some sort of puzzle box. He was the way he was because he was a prince . . .
The line went drearily around and around in her head.
Henry’s arms came around her shoulders and she was enveloped in a little cloud of perfume as sweet as treacle. “You’ll hate me for this, but some small part of me is glad that Gabriel turned out to be lacking the courage to break his engagement.”
“Why?”
Henry turned her around. “Because I got to spend this time with you,” she said, tucking one of Kate’s curls behind her ear. “You are the child I never had, sweet Kate. You’re the best gift that Victor ever gave anyone.” Her eyes were shiny with tears. “I love him all over again for that, because I love you. And though I hate to see you so sad, the greedy part of me is terribly grateful for the time we’ve spent together in the last few weeks.”
Kate gave her a wobbly smile and pulled her into an embrace. “I feel the same way,” she said, hugging Henry tight. “It makes up for all those years with Mariana.”
“Well,” Henry said, a second later, “I’m actually getting tearful. You’ll think that I joined Leo in a preprandial brandy. I didn’t really mean it about Gabriel. I wish he’d been the man you hoped he was, darling. I truly do.”