Following her lead, he tugged her bodice down, slipped his fingers past her corset and chemise, and stroked her nipple until she was taut against his fingers. “I have no desire to be anyplace but here with you. I’m never going back,” he vowed as he stroked her. “And forever won’t be long enough for how much I love you.”
Clary shifted in his lap and felt him stiffen beneath her. She reached down, eager to shape the length of him with her hand. He only let her touch him a moment before lifting her in his arms and settling her back on his desk. He flipped up her skirt.
“Again?” she said as she eagerly worked the fastenings of his half-buttoned fly.
“This will be our office, won’t it, Mrs. King? We can do whatever we like after business hours.”
EPILOGUE
Clary bounced on her toes as the craftsman worked. He tolerated her exuberance well, casting only a few irritated glances over his shoulder as he carefully painted the letters. Gilded this time, not simple black.
“He’s back!” Daughtry shouted across the workroom.
“Hurry,” Clary urged the man with the paintbrush.
He heaved a weary sigh and applied the last swipe of paint on the frosted glass. With a wagging finger, he turned to instruct her, “No touching for an hour.”
Clary stifled laughter. Apparently, he knew nothing of her or her husband. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other for a quarter of an hour, let alone sixty minutes. But she nodded at the serious man. He meant the paint, of course, not what Mr. and Mrs. King got up to in the office after everyone went home for the day.
As one of the clerks presented the painter with a check and led him out the rear exit of Ruthven’s, Gabriel entered the front door, a box with baked goods balanced in one hand and a bouquet of fat summer roses in the other.
His grin pierced her with the sweetest burst of pleasure in her chest. Six months on from their wedding day, he still wore a look of wonder when he spotted her across a room, as if he was seeing her for the first time and quite liked what he beheld. Clary was still getting used to anyone looking at her with such naked appreciation. Most of all, she loved that Gabriel didn’t hide his feelings for her anymore.
In fact, she had become the moderate, cautious one at times, stopping him when he was ready to wrap her legs around his waist. He’d take her against the front door of Ruthven’s if she’d allow him to.
Several times, she’d been quite tempted to let him.
“Is there still hot tea?” he asked as he strode forward and pecked a kiss on her cheek.
Tea had now become less a luxury and more of a necessity. The sink in the rear of the building, which previously had been used for washing printing plates or for the clerks to clean up after a spill, was now employed to draw water for tea. They’d installed a gas-fueled hob, which allowed them to keep hot water for beverages on hand throughout the day.
“Simkins has just made a fresh pot,” Clary informed him. None of the clerks minded who made the brews, as long as the supply was kept up.
Gabe scanned the workroom for the young man and nudged his chin up in approval. “Good man, Simkins.”
The clerk grinned as if he’d just been acknowledged by the queen.
“Notice anything different?” Clary said suggestively as she stepped back to lean against the doorframe of their office.
Gabe spun in a circle, casting his gaze around the office, and then faced her. “No. Should I?”
Clearing her throat, Clary edged up onto her toes and perched a hand on her hip nearest the door. “Nothing at all?”
He twisted his mouth as he stared at her, then drew his gaze down her body, slowly, that hungry look she adored turning his eyes a darker blue.
“Up higher,” she urged.
Tipping a wicked grin, he fixed his gaze on her breasts before licking his lips.
Clary shivered. She knew what those lips could do. “Higher,” she growled, only barely resisting shoving her hand in the air and drawing a line underneath where the craftsmen had written their names on the frosted glass of their shared office door.
“Ah,” Gabe finally said, “you’ve changed your hair.” He clucked approvingly before leaning close. “Though to be honest, I prefer it hanging loose down your naked back or gathered in my hands while I—”
“The door,” Clary said on a frantic whisper to keep him from setting her body aflame in front of their entire staff. And Daughtry.
Taking a step back, he lifted his hand to his mouth. “Hmm,” was all he uttered—then a maddening “I see,” before he finally looked down at her and let go a smile that lit up the room. “It’s perfect.”
“Do you think so? Truly?”
Their names were printed, one on top of the other.
GABRIEL KING
&
CLARISSA RUTHVEN KING
Gabe had settled on using his true surname, determined to keep clear of the shadows and live without fear of Rigg, who’d been sent to Newgate, or his cronies, many of whom had shared his fate. After Gabe’s sworn testimony, others came forward, confessing their parts and implicating Rigg in crimes far and wide, even beyond the East End.
Clary wished to keep her maiden name as well as adding Gabe’s. She refused to view their marriage as a loss of any part of herself. Gabe had only enriched her life, broadened it, brought her more happiness than she ever imagined she could find by binding herself to another.
Gabe led her into their office, which had been expanded to twice its size and included a movable partition for times when they met with authors or vendors separately. Today the partition was hidden away, and the curtains had been pulled back to allow the bright summer sun to flood the room with its light.
“Many appointments today?” he asked her.
Clary lifted the watch pinned to her fuchsia shirtwaist. “The girls are due to arrive to work on the first issue of The Ladies’ Clarion. I can’t believe we go to print in a week. After that, I have only one appointment, but it’s not for another hour. It’s the sentimental-story lady. I wished to meet her, and she’s promised to bring more stories. You?”
“Daughtry and I are meeting with a new printing-press vendor. The man promises his machine is faster and cheaper to operate.” Gabe glanced back at her. “He’s not due until after lunch.” Standing before their closed door, he examined the freshly painted letters of their names. “I like the way the ampersand touches both names, connecting them,” he said.
“I asked him to do that and to add those extra flourishes to the letters.”
He took in the gilded swirls and smiled back at her. “Of course you did.” Turning, he took two long steps to close the space between them. “I’ve never a met a woman less able to avoid a flourish.”
“Is that a complaint?”
“It couldn’t be. I have none where you’re concerned.” Gabe leaned closer, and Clary pushed a palm against his waistcoat.
She’d warned him about being too intimate in the office, especially when the clerks and Daughtry were on-site. But she never chastised him with much vehemence when he crossed the invisible line of propriety.
“Do you know what else I like about our names on the door?” he asked as he nuzzled her cheek.
“Tell me,” she whispered.
He placed a chaste kiss on her cheek and another close to the edge of her mouth. “They are stacked rather suggestively, don’t you think?” Slipping a hand around her waist, he bent her back until she had to reach for his shoulders to keep from tipping.
“You mean, you on top and me underneath you?”
He nodded, drawing his stubbled cheek against hers. “Mmm, precisely.” Straightening to his full height, he cast her a devilish grin. “Though I must admit”—he tightened his hand at her back, pulling her hips snug with his—“I do quite like when you’re on top.”
“Do you?” Clary snaked a finger between the buttons of his shirt to feel his warm skin against hers.
“Tonight,” he said, catching her hand
in his and pressing her palm over the spot where his heart beat steady and strong. “I promise to show you just how much.”
Don’t miss any of the Ruthven siblings’ romances in
Christy Carlyle’s Romancing the Rules series!
First up, keep reading for an excerpt to Kit’s story,
RULES FOR A ROGUE
Kit Ruthven’s Rules (for Rogues)
#1 Love freely but guard your heart, no matter how tempting the invader.
#2 Embrace temptation, indulge your sensual impulses, and never apologize.
#3 Scorn rules and do as you please. You are a rogue, after all.
Rules never brought anything but misery to Christopher “Kit” Ruthven. After rebelling against his controlling father and leaving the family’s etiquette empire behind, Kit has been breaking every one imaginable for the past four years. He’s enjoyed London’s sensual pleasures, but he’s failed to achieve the success he craves as London’s premier playwright. When his father dies, Kit returns to the countryside and is forced back into the life he never wanted. Worse, he must face Ophelia Marsden, the woman he left behind years before.
After losing her father, Ophelia has learned to rely on herself. To maintain the family home and support her younger sister, she tutors young girls in deportment and decorum. But her pupils would be scandalized if they knew she was also the author of a guidebook encouraging ladies to embrace their independence.
As Kit rediscovers the life, and the woman, he left behind, Ophelia must choose between the practicalities she never truly believed in, or the love she’s never been able to extinguish.
He always searched for her.
Call it perversity or a reckless brand of tenacity. Heaven knew he’d been accused of both.
Pacing the scuffed wooden floorboards at the edge of the stage, Christopher Ruthven shoved a hand through his black hair and skimmed his dark gaze across each seat in the main theater stalls of Merrick Theater for the woman he needed to forget.
Damn the mad impulse to look for her.
He was a fool to imagine he’d ever find her staring back. The anticipation roiling in his belly should be for the play, not the past.
Finding her would be folly. Considering how they’d parted, the lady would be as likely to lash out as to embrace him with open arms.
But searching for her had become his habit. His ritual.
Other thespians had rituals too. Some refused to eat before a performance. Others feasted like a king. A few repeated incantations, mumbling to themselves when the curtains rose. As the son of a publishing magnate, Kit should have devised his own maxim to repeat, but the time for words was past. He’d written the play, and the first act was about to begin.
Now he only craved a glimpse of Ophelia Marsden.
The four years since he’d last seen her mattered not. Her bright blue eyes, heart-shaped face, and striking red hair had always distinguished her from other women, but Kit knew they were the least of the qualities that set her apart. Clever, stubborn to the core, and overflowing with more spirit than anyone he’d ever known—that’s how he remembered Phee.
But looking for her wasn’t mere folly; it was futile. She wouldn’t come. He, after all, was the man who’d broken her heart.
As stagehands lit the limelights, Kit shaded his eyes from their glare and stepped behind the curtain. The thrumming in his veins was about the play now, the same giddiness he felt before every performance.
Hunching his shoulders, he braced his arms across his chest and listened intently, half his attention on the lines being delivered on stage, half on the pandemonium backstage. He adored the energy of the theater, the frenetic chaos of actors and stagehands rushing about madly behind the curtains to produce rehearsed magic for the audience. Economies at Merrick’s meant he might write a play, perform in it, assist with scene changes from the catwalk, and direct other actors—all in one evening.
Tonight, though, beyond writing the words spoken on stage, the production was out of his hands, and that heightened his nerves. Idleness made him brood.
Behind him a husky female voice cried out, and Kit turned to intercept the woman as she rushed forward, filling his arms with soft curves.
“There’s a mouse!” Tess, the playhouse’s leading lady, batted thick lashes and stuck out a vermillion-stained lower lip. “Vile creatures. Every one of them.”
“Tell me where.” Kit gently dislodged the petite blonde from his embrace.
“Scurried underneath, so it did.” She indicated a battered chest of drawers, sometimes used for storage, more often as a set piece.
Kit approached the bulky wooden chest, crouched down, and saw nothing but darkness and dust. Bracing his palms on the floor, he lowered until his chest pressed against wood, and he spied the little creature huddling in the farthest corner. The tiny mouse looked far more frightened of him than Tess was of it.
“Can you catch the beast? We can find a cage or give it to the stray cats hanging about the stage doors.”
“Too far out of reach.” He could move the chest, but the mouse would no doubt scurry away. Seemed kinder to allow the animal to find its own way to freedom. Kit knew what it was to be trapped and frightened. To cower in darkness covered in dust. His father hadn’t shut him up in a cage, just a closet now and then, but Kit would be damned if he’d confine any creature.
Tess made an odd sound. Of protest, Kit assumed. But when he cast a glance over his shoulder, her gaze raked hungrily over his legs and backside as he got to his feet.
“The little thing will no doubt find its way out of doors, Tess. Not much food to be had here.”
Tess took his attempt at reassurance as an invitation and launched herself into his arms.
She was an appealing woman, with tousled golden curls, catlike green eyes, and an exceedingly ample—Ah, yes, there they are—bosom that she shifted enticingly against his chest, as if she knew precisely how good her lush body felt against his. Without a hint of shame or restraint, she moved her hands down his arms, slid them under his unbuttoned sack coat, and stroked her fingers up his back.
“Goodness, you’re deliciously tall.”
Kit grinned. He found female praise for his awkward height amusing, since he’d been mercilessly teased for his long frame as a child. In a theater world full of handsome, charming actors, his stature and whatever skill he possessed with the written word were all that set him apart.
“You’re like a tree I long to climb,” she purred. “Feels so right in your arms. Perhaps the gods are telling us that’s where I belong.”
Tess wasn’t merely generously built. From the day she arrived, she’d been generous with her affections too. Half the men at Merrick’s were smitten, but Kit kept to his rule about avoiding intrigues with ladies in the troupe. Since coming to London, he’d never sought more than a short-lived entanglement with any woman. He relished his liberty too much to allow himself more.
“Perhaps the gods are unaware you’re due on stage for the next act,” he teased, making light of her flirtation as he’d done since their introduction.
“Always concerned about your play, aren’t you, lovie?” She slid a hand up his body, snaking a finger between the buttons of his waistcoat. “I know my part. Don’t worry, Kitten.”
The pet name she’d chosen for him grated on his nerves.
“The music’s risen, Tess.” Kit gripped the actress’s hand when she reached toward his waistband. “That’s your cue.”
“I’ll make you proud.” She winked and lifted onto her toes, placing a damp kiss on his cheek. “You’re a difficult man to seduce,” she whispered, “but I do so love a challenge.” After sauntering to the curtain’s edge, she offered him a final come-hither glance before sashaying on stage.
“Already breaking hearts, Kitten? The evening’s only just begun.” Jasper Grey, Merrick Theater’s lead actor and Kit’s closest friend, exited stage left and sidled up beside him. With a few swipes across his head, Grey disheveled his coppery
brown hair and loosened the faux silk cravat at his throat. The changes were subtle, but sufficient to signal to the audience that his character would begin a descent into madness and debauchery during the second act. Having explored many of London’s diversions at the man’s side, Kit could attest to Grey’s knack for debauchery, on and off the stage.
“I’m sure you’ll be more than happy to offer solace. Or have you already?” Choosing a new lover each night of the week was more Grey’s style than Kit’s, though both had attracted their share of stage-door admirers and earned their reputations as rogues.
Grey’s smirk gave everything away. “Whatever the nature of my private moments with our lovely leading lady, the minx is determined to offer you her heart.”
“Bollocks to that. I’ve no interest in claiming anyone’s heart.” The very thought chased a chill up Kit’s spine. Marriage. Commitment. Those were for other men. If his parents were any lesson, marriage was a miserable prison, and he had no wish to be shackled.
Kit turned his attention back to the audience.
“Still looking for your phantom lady?” Grey often tweaked Kit about his habit of searching the crowd. Rather than reveal parts of his past he wished to forget, Kit allowed his friend to assume he sought a feminine ideal, not a very specific woman of flesh and freckles and fetching red hair. “What will you do if she finally appears?”
“She won’t.” And if he were less of a fool, he’d stop looking for her.
“Come, man. We’ve packed the house again tonight. This evening we celebrate.” Grey swiped at the perspiration on his brow. “You’ve been downright monkish of late. There must be a woman in London who can turn your head. What about the buxom widow who threw herself at you backstage after last week’s performance?”
“The lady stumbled. I simply caught her fall.”
How to Woo a Wallflower Page 23