by Anne Gracie
“They’re extraordinary, aren’t they, my sisters?
“I haven’t yet thanked you for saving Dorie,” he said softly. “Come here.” He pulled her against him and kissed her tenderly and long. “You didn’t just save Dorie. You saved all of us. Me especially. Have I told you I love you, Miss Hope Merridew?”
She smiled mistily. “Mmm, if I saved you, it’s for purely selfish reasons. I love you, too, Sebastian Reyne. So very, very much!” She smiled at him with such a look of blazing love, he kissed her again. And again.
“Do you have to go home and change?” he muttered against her throat. “I think you look beautiful as you are.”
She pulled away and regarded him through half-closed eyes. “Yes,” she said softly. She walked to the door. And closed it. And turned the lock. She faced him with a secret little smile.
“We have half an hour.”
Her habit was blue velvet, but when Sebastian unbuttoned the jacket, he saw she wore only a thin silk shirt. He could see the flesh beneath it, the soft pink nipples that rose as he watched. He laid her gently back on the chaise longue.
She saw the gray of his eyes darken and his jaw lock with tension. And stubbornness. Half an hour was not enough, she decided. He was going to be noble.
He kissed her, deeply, the intensely masculine taste of him filling her mouth, swamping her senses, sending her blood thrumming through her veins with a dizzying, hectic demand. She kissed him back, clutching at the powerful shoulders that had once intimidated her.
His strength was at her service. And she wanted it, wanted it with an intensity that almost frightened her. She pushed his coat open and fumbled at the buttons of his shirt. Heat radiated from him, and she could not get enough of him. His chest was solid and hard and exquisitely different from hers. She scratched his skin lightly with her nails, and he groaned deep in his throat and shuddered under her hand. “My tiger,” she whispered.
He made a harsh sound and reached for her, and she felt a surge of deep, feminine pride in his hunger. For her. For clumsy, bad Hope Merridew. He cupped her silk-covered breasts, moving his thumbs over the hardening nipples, silk and flesh sliding back and forth in delicious friction.
She threw her head back and arched as heat arrowed into her. “Oh that feels so . . .”
His mouth closed hotly around one silk-clad nipple, and she stiffened and made a great juddering movement, almost screaming with the intense pleasure-pain of it. She clutched him.
“Little tigress,” he growled. “Do you like that?”
“Mmm,” she clutched his head mindlessly and pulled it back down, and he took her other nipple in his mouth and sucked, hot and demanding through the thin, silken shirt.
Her limbs thrashed restlessly under him. She could feel his hard, erect member thrusting against her skirt. She wanted no barrier between his flesh and hers. She started to unbutton her shirt, tugging on the tiny mother-of-pearl buttons.
His big hand stopped her. “No.”
“Why not? I want to feel you—”
“Not here, not now. When I take you, my impatient little love, it will not be some hasty coupling on a hard chaise longue. It will be slow, and in a bed. I want to make it perfect for you.” He paused and said, “I want you for my wife, Hope Merridew. Will you wed me?”
She thought her face would split. Half smiling the biggest smile she’d ever smiled in her life, half weeping—and why she should weep when he was everything she’d ever wanted was a mystery to her. She took his jaw in her hands and kissed him all over, ecstatic, clumsy, moist kisses. “Oh yes, Sebastian. I will wed you, with pride and with pleasure.” She paused and then added meaningfully, “Much pleasure. Now, please.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Very well then, my impatient little tigress, here is your pleasure.” And he slipped his hand under her skirt. She gasped as she felt his hand close over her most intimate part the same moment his mouth enclosed her nipple. His hand and mouth started to move, and she was lost in waves of intense, impossible, glorious sensation.
Afterward, she thought she might have screamed. She could not be sure. She lay bonelessly on the chaise longue, staring up into the gray, gray eyes of her man.
After a long time, she was able to speak. “Oh, my,” she whispered. “Whatever was that?”
He grinned. “What you asked for.”
She shivered sensually. “Oh. I didn’t know one could ask for that.”
He kissed her and said, “When we are married, you can ask for it as often as you want.”
“Oh, my.” She thought about it. “I think Aunt Gussie gets it, and she’s not married. Even cats get it on the rooftops.”
He laughed, an abandoned, joyous sound, and began to do up the buttons of her habit. “No, my beautiful baggage. You will have to wait.”
She looked thoughtful. “Did it happen to you, too?”
“No,” he said shortly.
“But it can?”
“Yes, it can. When we’re married. Now, enough talking, my love. My sisters will be down any minute.”
Hope looked at the clock. To her amazement the half hour was up. It wasn’t nearly long enough. And then she thought of his words and smiled. When we’re married. She was going to marry Sebastian Reyne.
After the visit to Astley’s, while Hope and her sisters took his sisters to Gunter’s, Sebastian called on the magistrate at Bow Street, to present all the information he had on the villain, Albert Watts. He was determined to spare Dorie the ordeal of having to give evidence in court, if at all possible.
“No need, as it happens,” the magistrate said. “Watts was found dead in prison an hour ago. Throat slit from ear to ear. I gather we put the fellow in with some of his enemies, and from what I gather, he had plenty.” The magistrate shrugged. “Bad for discipline, of course, but it’s saved the hangman a job. We had enough on Albert Watts to hang him several times over.”
Chapter Nineteen
She is a woman, therefore may be wooed;
She is a woman, therefore may be won.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
“AT LEAST I HAVE ENTERED INTO THE SPIRIT OF THE EVENING. Whereas you—” Giles looked Sebastian up and down disparagingly. “You are not even in costume!”
Sebastian shrugged. “It is a masked ball. I am masked.”
“It is a masked Hungarian gypsy ball!”
“I am the plain sort of Hungarian gypsy. Not all of us can be dashing,” Sebastian said soothingly. His lips twitched as he added, “Besides, you look dashing enough for both of us. The head scarf and the gold earrings are utterly fetching!” And he ducked back, grinning, out of range of Giles’s fist.
“I suppose I look ridiculous,” Giles said gloomily.
“You do,” agreed Sebastian, “but then so does everyone else. No self-respecting gypsy would be seen dead in these costumes, Hungarian or otherwise!”
“It doesn’t matter—it’s all for fun!” Giles explained in long-suffering accents.
“Oh, fun is it? Well, off you go then, have fun. Find Lady Elinore and go and bring her into fashion. She at least will not be hard to spot in this colorful crowd—just look for a small gray blob.”
Giles sighed. “Yes, where she finds such garments is beyond me. Presumably somewhere in London there is a deranged dressmaker who perpetuates atrocities for a price. Or perhaps they are produced by her orphan waifs—I don’t know.” He frowned. “It’s quite late. What if she doesn’t come?”
“Why wouldn’t she come?”
Giles said darkly, “Who knows how that woman thinks? I offered to escort her here—with the strategy in mind, of course—but she refused! The woman refused! Me! One would have thought that a woman who’d never had a male escort would jump at the opportunity, but . . .” He made a frustrated gesture.
“Well, don’t fret. Hope’s not here yet, so there’s plenty of time. Why don’t you go off and enjoy yourself, Giles? Plenty of beauties here tonight. I don’t know whether it’s the masks or wh
at, but several ladies have made a number of extremely improper advances to me, so—”
“I don’t believe it!” Giles exclaimed in outraged accents.
“They did, I promise you. One lady even suggested—”
“I don’t mean that. I mean—look!”
“At what?” Sebastian turned his head to follow Giles’s gaze. The staircase divided into two arms, which embraced the ballroom. Hope and her twin, with Count Rimavska and Sir Oswald, were descending the right arm of the staircase, while Lady Augusta, unmistakable in a low-cut purple dress with orange and green feathers, and two other ladies descended on the left.
Sebastian straightened at the sight of his love. “Oh, good, she’s arrived.”
“Good! Good, you say? It’s utterly outrageous!” Giles sounded enraged. He was staring at the left-hand staircase.
Sebastian followed his friend’s gaze and shrugged. Lady Augusta’s gowns were frequently outrageous, but Giles could fuss all he wanted; Sebastian wasn’t interested in anyone except Hope.
His chest tightened and his mouth dried as he gazed at her. She was a vision in amber, cream, and gold. Her gown was silk, in dozens of shades of amber and, as she moved, her dress flowed around her as if honey dripped down her body. The small bodice of the gown was dark amber velvet with a deep, triangular, almost transparent lace inset in the center. The bodice was laced tightly and provocatively with gold braid in a faint nod to gypsy or peasant style, and the whole was cut low against the creamy skin of her bosom.
She looked utterly ravishing. Delectable. Utterly edible.
Giles exploded, “That dress is an affront to decency! What the devil has got into her? She was forced into this, mark my words!”
His vehemence jolted Sebastian out of his rapt contemplation, but Giles was still staring at the left-hand staircase, not at Hope. “Who are you talking about? Lady Augusta?”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous!” Giles snapped.
Sebastian looked again; it took a lot to shock his rakish friend. “I can’t see anything that would horrify anyone but a genuine Hungarian gypsy. Who was forced? Talk sense, man!”
“Lady Elinore, dammit! I’ll soon put a stop to it!”
“Lady Elinore? Where? I can’t see her anywhere.”
Giles took no notice. Muttering furiously, he cleaved his way through the aristocratic crowd and strode up to the small group of ladies just reaching the foot of the left-hand staircase. Sebastian cast a quick look at Hope and followed him, fearing trouble.
“Elinore, what the devil are you doing?”
Sebastian blinked. Had Giles been secretly imbibing? His friend loomed, glowering, over a masked lady who could not possibly be Lady Elinore Whitelaw. Admittedly, she was small and waifishly slender, but there all resemblance ended.
This lady was dressed in a brilliant scarlet gown slashed low across a dainty bosom. It was saved from indecency—just—by a teasing ruffle of black lace. Her head was a mass of short, soft, dark curls, not a scraped-back bun, and she wore a rakish headband of scarlet feathers, black lace, and glittering diamantés. A dozen gold bangles glittered on each slender, naked arm, and a black velvet band studded with diamantés encircled her elegant throat.
There was no way in the world this dashing little creature could be Lady Elinore. Sebastian nudged his friend, but Giles seemed oblivious.
“Well? Who is responsible for this?” Giles glared at Lady Augusta.
“Good evening, Giles,” Lady Augusta said, deliberately obtuse. “Responsible for what? The ball? Lady Thorn, of course. In honor of Count Rimavska. What a pretty gypsy lad you make, Giles, I declare! Those pompoms are divine.”
Giles’s color rose, but he did not deign to respond to the older lady’s comments. “Elinore!” he growled.
The small lady said not a word, just stared at him with a haughty expression.
“Giles, come away,” Sebastian began, and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “This is not—”
Giles shrugged off his grasp furiously. “Elinore, who has done this to you?”
Finally, the lady spoke, “I do not believe we know each other, sir. Have the goodness to let us pass, if you please.”
“Don’t be ridiculous—” Giles began.
The lady produced an ebony fan and poked him in the chest with it. “Out. Of. My. Way. If. You. Please.” She punctuated each word with a poke of the fan.
Dumbfounded, Giles fell back a step, and the little scarlet lady swept imperiously past him, nose in the air. Lady Augusta followed, pausing to pinch Giles on the cheek and say, “If you’re verrry good, my bonny gypsy lad, I might introduce you to my pretty little friend.” She chuckled evilly and sailed away.
“That woman is a witch!” Giles muttered, rubbing his cheek angrily.
“Well, it’s your own fault,” Sebastian declared. “It wasn’t Lady Elinore, and I don’t understand why you pushed it so far. What maggot got into your brain?”
“Maggot? Are you blind? It was Elinore, all right. Half naked and in scarlet, of all things!” Giles stared after her and said in a hoarse, desperate voice, “Oh God, Bastian, what have I done? She’s cut all her hair off and is wearing a dress more suited to an opera dancer than a lady. In scarlet!”
Sebastian couldn’t quite believe that the lady in red was Lady Elinore, but Giles’s complete lack of doubt was quite convincing. He looked distraught.
“If she is Lady Elinore, I’d have thought you’d rejoice to see her in colors, Giles. And looking so very fashionable.”
His friend groaned. “But not in scarlet! Oh, what have I done, what have I done?” he said remorsefully.
Sebastian frowned. “What have you done, Giles?”
Giles closed his eyes in momentary anguish. “Seduced her in a cupboard! And again on the stairs at the opera house.”
“What?”
“Not entirely. Not all the way. She’s still a virgin. Sort of.” He groaned again. “Although she obviously doesn’t believe so. Look at her, Bastian! She’s dressed herself as a fallen woman! And it’s my fault! I’ve trampled over every one of her principles, ground her morals into the dust, ignored her boundaries. I thought because she didn’t pull her hatpin on me, she liked what we were doing. I was sure she did!
“With her upbringing, she probably believes what we did makes her a scarlet woman, almost a prostitute.” Giles ran his hands distractedly though his hair, dislodging his gypsy head scarf. “I’ve destroyed her!”
Sebastian thought about it. The small, elegant woman in scarlet and black didn’t look at all like a woman overcome with shame and self-loathing. In fact, she seemed to be enjoying herself. And that dress was not a last-minute acquisition. He looked at his friend, and his lips twitched. Giles’s anguished expression of guilt sat ill on his ludicrous gypsy costume.
“If that’s what you think, you’ll have to make it right.”
Giles gave him an anxious look. “How can I make it right? That’s the question.”
Sebastian shrugged. “There is a time-honored method of righting the wrongs of the flesh.”
Giles looked blank.
Sebastian rolled his eyes at his friend’s thickheadedness. “You said yourself she needed to be married.”
“Marriage! To Lady Elinore Whitelaw? Me?”
Sebastian wasn’t sure whether Giles was appalled, stunned, or simply disbelieving. He spread his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “It’s only one time-honored solution to this sort of problem. There are others. You must sort out the mess in whatever way you choose. It’s your problem, Giles.”
He glanced across the room to where Hope had just been joined by Lady Augusta, the chaperone, and the mysterious lady in red. “My immediate need is to engage Miss Merridew for the supper dance.” He patted Giles on the cheek in mocking imitation of Lady Augusta. “Come on, bonny gypsy lad, and see if you can get a dance with Lady Augusta’s new little friend.”
Giles gave a warning snarl but followed him meekly across the dance floor.<
br />
A gaggle of gypsified gentlemen clustered around Hope and her sister like bees in search of honey. When Sebastian looked at the way the tightly laced velvet bodice cupped Hope’s creamy bosom, he felt distinctly, blatantly primitive. They could cluster around Miss Faith all they wanted, but Hope was his!
Sebastian cut a determined swathe through the crowd, Giles in his wake. The small, scarlet lady tossed her head haughtily as they approached and hurried away. Giles veered off after her, and then Sebastian was standing in front of Hope, and he forgot all about anyone else.
“Miss Merridew.” Sebastian bowed over her hand, resisting the urge to bring it to his lips. He scanned her face intently. A faint blush stole over her features as she lifted her eyes to his. He stared down at her a long moment, wishing they were alone again. He needed to kiss her. Again. And again. Their eyes met, clung, kissed. It was not enough. They swayed toward each other.
Sir Oswald Merridew cleared his throat ostentatiously, and Sebastian recalled his surroundings. Somehow he managed to greet Sir Oswald, Lady Augusta, Hope’s twin sister, the count, and the chaperone, who glared daggers at him. Bilious again, poor woman.
“Mr. Reyne!” the chaperone snapped.
“Yes, madam?” He inclined his head politely at her, wishing he could remember her name.
“Your hand?”
“Eh?” Sebastian was confused. He hadn’t asked the chaperone to dance. The woman was puffing visibly with disapproval, Sir Oswald was scowling at him, Lady Augusta and Miss Faith were grinning openly, and Miss Merridew was blushing rosily and trying not to smile. Around him he could feel aristocratic gypsies seething and muttering.
“Your hand, sirrah!” The chaperone glared pointedly at his left hand.
What was the matter? He’d remembered to put on his gloves. He glanced down. “Ah!” He hurriedly dropped Miss Merridew’s hand, which had somehow remained encased in his and come to be placed against his heart. “Sorry.” He had no memory of doing it.
Miss Hope’s blushed intensified. Her eyes glowed up at him. A tiny dimple quivered to the left of her lips. He stared, fascinated.