by Mia Marlowe
“Divide and conquer then. You troll for Daphne Darkin, and I’ll see if I can scare up the younger sister. Constance, was it?”
“Cassandra.”
“Right.” Garret surveyed the line of beauties on the dance floor, colorful and graceful as an English garden. One of them was about to become the Duke of Camden’s newest pet project. He almost pitied the girl. “Come find me if you discover something of import and we’ll complete our abduction with dispatch.”
“Abduction? Surely it won’t come to that.”
“I’ll try for a seduction, but one way or another we have to convince the girl to come away with total strangers.” Garret glanced at the sideboard and found Almack’s usual fare—bread sliced so thin he could read the Times through it, pound cake and drinks with no alcohol content at all. “Pity they only serve tea and lemonade here. An inebriated debutante would be much more pliant.”
“How did His Grace suggest we proceed?”
“The duke doesn’t care how we manage to bring the right lady to Camden House,” Garret said. “His Grace only speaks and expects it to be done. We must sort out the details ourselves.”
In the worst case, Garret could always imprint the girl’s mind with the thought that, of course, she’d love to risk her reputation by departing without a chaperone in the company of two men whom she didn’t know. It would be more interesting if he didn’t have to resort to using his gift. It would indicate a freshness of spirit not often seen in a debutante. And Vesta had said the new fire mage was no virgin. A soiled dove was generally more adventurous than one with a maidenhead yet to lose.
“How long have you been a member of the Order?” Westfall asked as he scoured the room with his penetrating gaze.
“Too long.” It had been six months since His Grace had tracked Garret to his lair. He had been passed out in an opium den trying to get a handle on the more troublesome aspect of his gift. Being able to shoot a random thought into another’s mind was a devilishly enjoyable ability. Dreaming a future for them that he couldn’t control was much less so.
It didn’t happen often because Garret took pains to see that it didn’t. He never developed an attachment to anyone, for fear it might lead him to dream about them. But if someone entered his dreams with enough force for him to recall it the next day, his dream inevitably came to pass. It might not be that day or even that month, but one way or another, his nightmare would eventually invade the waking world. Not knowing when to expect the manifestation was merely the added knife thrust of this unique type of torture.
As much as he chafed under the duke’s leadership, Garret needed help before his nightmares became someone else’s reality. If he could avoid having evil dreams, or at least avoid remembering them, he was less likely to destroy someone.
Again.
“Have hope, Sterling,” Westfall said as if he’d spoken his worst fear aloud. “It’s a prodigious load you bear, but the duke is undoubtedly looking for a cure for you.”
“What he’s undoubtedly looking for is a way to use me. And you, Westfall…” Garret kept his tone low, but it was full of silky menace. “Stay the hell out of my head.”
…
Cassandra dropped a parting curtsy to her quadrille partner and wished again for the evening to be over. Her new slippers pinched abominably. The headache she’d considered pleading earlier was beginning to form in earnest behind her right eye. To make matters worse, the next name penciled in on her dance card was Roderick Bellefonte.
He appeared at her side the moment the strains of a waltz began.
Jupiter! Of course it is a waltz.
Roddy didn’t mouth the appropriate words, requesting the honor of dancing with her. Instead he simply said her name.
“Cassie.”
Intimate as a caress.
Every candle flame in the room shimmered.
Without waiting for her curtsy, he gathered her into a waltz frame and began a dipping circuit of the dance floor. She couldn’t object without making a scene. And part of her didn’t want to object. His hand at her waist radiated warmly through the layers of her gown, sending raw awareness flickering over her skin.
“I’ve missed you,” he said.
She laughed in surprise. It was not a merry sound, not a silvery laugh like Lady Sylvia’s. It popped out of her like a strange cross between a burp and a hiccup, but Roderick didn’t seem to notice.
She sneaked a glance up at his face. The smooth brow above his impossibly blue eyes was untroubled. Obviously his insides weren’t tangled in knots like hers. His mouth twitched in a smile.
“Don’t you dare laugh at me,” she warned.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He leaned down to continue in a whisper, “But I do dream of you.”
She flashed a warning glare. “Don’t.”
“I can’t help it. You’re part of my heart.” For the first time, she detected a hint of sadness in him. “Can’t you see what’s happening here?”
“Only too plainly,” Cassandra said. “The earl’s daughter is quite lovely and everyone is atwitter about when the pair of you will make your announcement.”
“Cassie…”
Each time he said her name was a lance to her heart. She focused on a roving point above Roddy’s right shoulder to avoid meeting his gaze. “I’m sure she’s a fine choice. I’ve not heard a word against her.”
More’s the pity. If she’d felt Lady Sylvia was really a spiteful witch, she’d have been inclined to fight for Roderick. As it was, she couldn’t claim to love him and keep him from such an outrageously advantageous match.
Love meant she wanted the best for him, didn’t it? Her father might be a well-heeled baronet, but all his money still wouldn’t cover the tawdriness of having been in trade. Cassie had been weighed in society’s balance and found sadly wanting. Roderick would never seek to join the house of Bellefonte to plain Miss Cassandra Darkin when he might have Lady Sylvia.
Roderick sighed. “I’m glad you understand I am a gentleman with obligations. Some choices I cannot make based solely on my own wishes.”
A bit of his longish dark blond hair fell forward over his forehead. Cassie ached to brush it back for him, but decided the gesture would be judged far too intimate, even for old family friends.
“I’ve never understood how Society can dictate the most private of decisions.” Her mind accepted that he would be considered mad to choose her over the earl’s daughter but her heart couldn’t quite make that leap. “What is the point of being wellborn if it means you have less personal freedom than your valet?”
He chuckled. “What an odd way of looking at things. It’s one of the many things I love about you.”
“Love?” She wished the word didn’t make her insides cavort about. The room seemed brighter for an instant but then the candles’ glow faded. He couldn’t mean it if he was still planning to marry Lady Sylvia. “That’s not very appropriate from a man who’s about to be betrothed to another.”
She knew full well what was appropriate. She and her sister had all but memorized Pattern Behavior for the Well Bred Young Lady by Mrs. Euphigenia Oddbotham. But Cassandra’s body seemed to have studied a different book of etiquette. Being so close to Roddy was causing that empty, achy feeling in her most secret place to begin anew. It made her want to toss away every bit of “oughtness” she’d tried hard to absorb from Mrs. Oddbotham’s book.
“I’m not pledged to Lady Sylvia yet, but that’s neither here nor there. Love doesn’t have to be bound by the conventions of matrimony, you know. Don’t you remember the old stories about courtly love? A knight-errant didn’t have to wed his lady in order to carry her in his heart.” In that moment, he looked so much like the boy he’d been, her chest constricted smartly. “The fact that I’m to be married doesn’t have to mean…well, the end of us.”
She blinked up at him. “What are you saying?”
“Don’t you see? Once I have control of Sylvia’s dowry, I’ll have more than enough to kee
p you in style.”
“Keep me,” she repeated.
“Of course. I’ll find you a little house, someplace fashionable yet discreet, and…”
His mouth continued to move, but Cassandra stopped hearing the words coming out of it. She was a hollowed-out gourd. If she weren’t on the dance floor before countless curious eyes, she’d drop to the hardwood and shrivel away.
To stay upright, she reached for indignation and leaned on it with all her might. Close on indignation’s heels, fury washed over her. She straightened her spine and, strangely enough, for a moment she thought she smelled smoke.
“Ah, there you are, Miss Darkin.” A stranger appeared behind Roderick’s shoulder. He was a couple inches taller than Roddy’s six feet and matched him handily for breadth of shoulders. “I’m cutting in now.”
“The devil you say!” Roderick faced the newcomer with a frown, but then suddenly a ridiculous grin turned up the corners of his lips. “Of course, friend. I just realized I must be elsewhere immediately. Thank you for seeing to the lady’s entertainment. Enjoy the rest of your dance, my dear.”
Roderick made a small obeisance over Cassie’s fingertips. Then he turned on his heel, making a beeline toward Lady Sylvia who was surrounded by several other young bucks.
The new man swept Cassie back into the waltz with hardly a missed step.
“Wait. What are you doing?” She tried and failed to tug her hand free. This was so wrong. The gentleman was a total stranger. Where were the lady patronesses? Surely they’d never allow such a thing to happen. “There’s been a mistake.”
“You are Miss Cassandra Darkin, are you not?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then there’s no mistake.” His warm brown eyes seemed to look right through her and see far too much for her comfort. Roderick was exceedingly fine to look upon but he was no match for this man. The stranger was like an eclipse of the sun. Dark, but fascinating. Blindingly attractive, but dangerous to look at directly for longer than a blink.
“We should not be dancing together because we’ve not been properly introduced. I don’t know you.”
“How very odd, since it seems I know you.” One corner of his mouth turned up in a crooked, yet seductive smile. “Undoubtedly our paths have crossed at some point and I failed to make an impression.”
“I highly doubt that.”
“Thank you.”
“It wasn’t a compliment.” Irritation fizzed in her chest. “I meant I’d remember manners as atrocious as yours.” The scent of smoke was stronger now. She wondered that the man didn’t remark on it. “How dare you interrupt a dancing couple.”
Unperturbed, he extended his arm to lead her into a graceful turn. Whatever else this stranger was, he was at least a better-than-average dancing partner. “I have it on the best authority that the practice of cutting in is quite the ‘done’ thing in Boston.”
“Then it is my great good fortune not to be in Boston.” Cassie sniffed and looked pointedly away from him.
“I rather suspect Boston feels the same about your absence.”
Her gaze jerked back to his smugly handsome face. Rather, she’d have considered him handsome if she’d not heard him speak. Every word that dropped from his firm-lipped mouth seemed calculated to exasperate her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that undoubtedly a good bit of that city is as flammable as ours. Not having you in it means Boston is a far safer place than London at the moment.”
Flammable? What did he know about the fires that had plagued her of late? “You’re mad.”
“No, I’m Garret Sterling. At your service.” He bowed from the neck without missing a step. “And I assure you, I am not mad. However, if you prefer a fellow who’s one brick short of a load, my associate Viscount Westfall would be delighted to oblige you. He hears voices, poor thing. You’ll find him over there chatting with the young lady by the potted palm. Or perhaps he’s directing his attentions to the plant. It’s difficult to tell from here and he does prefer greenery over people. That wouldn’t be your sister with him, by any chance, would it?”
Cassandra followed the direction of his gaze to Daphne and a perfectly normal-seeming gentleman. The way Garret Sterling made her insides flare she’d trade places with her sister in a heartbeat. “Yes, that’s Daphne but—”
“Then my colleague is doing his job.”
“His job?” Had this Garret Sterling and his friend the lunatic viscount lost a bet of some kind that required them to display boorish behavior in Almack’s, the citadel of proper decorum? “Am I to understand you are both occupied with waylaying the Darkin sisters for some reason?”
“Oh, I think you know the reason.”
When he nodded knowingly at her, a shock of dark hair fell forward on his forehead. But unlike with Roddy, Cassie felt no tender inclination to brush it back for him. This man was a smoldering heap of ash that might burst into flame at any moment. Garret Sterling would be too risky to touch.
“I’m willing to allow that it may have been accidental, at least the first time,” he said, “but we both know you’ve been doing things you ought not.”
Mr. Sterling raised a dark brow at her and her heart spiraled to her toes. Roderick had obviously been talking about her, not only with his friends, but with total strangers as well. He’d done worse than abandon her. He’d betrayed her. The clammy sickness of grief transformed into cold fury. Cassie’s insides did a slow burn.
On the far side of the room, the candelabra on the luncheon table toppled onto its side and the linen cloth caught in a fountain of spitting flames. A spark leaped to the nearby floor-to-ceiling drapery and spread to the bunting linking the long windows. Half the room’s perimeter was instantly ringed in a roaring blaze near the high ceiling.
Panic seized everyone in Almack’s and amid shrieks and curses, the crowd stampeded toward the exit. Cassie tried to pull free in order to run with them, but Garret Sterling wouldn’t release her hand.
“Put the fire out, Cassie,” he said calmly.
“How can I do that?” A bucket brigade in full spate might not be able to quench this rapidly spreading fire. “Let me go. We have to—”
“No, you have to put it out. In your mind.”
He pulled her back into an embrace, much closer than the waltz frame this time. His chest was a rock-hard wall against her breasts and his muscular thighs were flush with hers. Against her will, the achy hollow inside her throbbed. Her body responded to this stranger with as much force as she’d felt for Roderick, the man she adored.
More, she realized with despair. Her breath caught in her throat as she looked up at him. The wanting was even worse than with Roddy.
What was wrong with her? She was in danger of becoming a hopeless wanton.
“You need to concentrate. Let me help you,” he said. While the ton roared in panic around them and before she could stop him, he bent his head and covered her mouth with his.
Chapter Three
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In another’s being mingle—
Why not I with thine?
—Percy Bysshe Shelley, from “Love’s Philosophy”
The world around them faded into indistinct sounds of alarm and billowing smoke. She struggled for only a moment in his arms, but then it seemed her flesh heard the call of his and she quieted while he explored her lips. Garret drew the air from her lungs and replaced it with his own. She moaned softly into his mouth and submitted to the gentle exploration of his tongue. Then she grasped his lapels and thrust her tongue between his lips.
His gut clenched in anticipation. It wasn’t often a woman wrested control of a kiss from him. He wondered what she’d do next.
He didn’t have long to wait. Cassandra Darkin took from him, savaging his lips, ragged with need. He planted his feet firmly and let her have whatever she cared to pillage from him.
Vesta LaMotte had warned him that
a fire mage was an elemental of the fiercest kind. Consuming, devouring, once they came into their gift, their physical needs were ravenous, almost uncontrollable. Females of the type were rare, but the few Vesta had encountered were just as ferocious in this regard as the males.
And more insatiable.
If Garret were to initiate a sensual dalliance with one, he should be prepared to be used up by the experience as a cord of dry wood surrenders to flame. The way his body responded to Cassandra’s demanding kiss, he didn’t think it would be a bad way to go.
She pulled back and the fire around them was instantly snuffed out, as if a giant’s hand had pinched off an equally oversize candle flame. But even though the blaze was extinguished, the room was still awash in dark smoke.
“Very good,” Garret said. Damned good, in fact. He’d never kissed a woman who was as aggressive in her passion as she was responsive. For the first time since he had joined the Order of the M.U.S.E., he was grateful for the duties it entailed. “Now we need to get you out of here. The Duke of Camden is anxious to meet you. Will you be so kind as to accompany Viscount Westfall and me back to Camden House so we can introduce you to His Grace?”
She huffed in surprise, her pupils fully dilated, her cheeks flushing scarlet. Garret recognized feminine arousal when he saw it, but she seemed determined to hide behind convention. “I most certainly will not. I can’t go anywhere with you. We’ve not even been properly introduced.”
“After a kiss like that, I hardly think proper introductions signify in the slightest.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I doubt you even know the duke.” Miss Darkin pulled free of his embrace and darted forward into the smoke, calling out her sister’s name.
Garret followed. He hadn’t wanted to do this, but he was forced to Send her a strong suggestion of compliance. It was usually enough to knock all other thoughts from his target’s head, but she kept clawing her way through the gloom, coughing as she went, as if she hadn’t received his implanted thought at all. He caught her hand and brought her to a halt.