And Then He Kissed Her

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  She took it from him, opened it to her section, and gave an exclamation of surprise at the sight of her pseudonym so prominently displayed. She began flipping pages, scanning the articles she had written. As she always did when her words appeared in print, she felt like a little girl at Christmas who’d gotten the perfect present. “It’s wonderful!” she cried and couldn’t help laughing with exultation. “Simply wonderful!”

  “Emma, your column has been in this newspaper every week for over two months,” he re minded her. “Do you get this excited every week?”

  “Yes,” she said and paused to look up at him, still laughing. “Yes, I do.”

  He grinned back at her. “If it makes you smile like that, I’ll bring you a copy every Friday afternoon.”

  Before she could reply, a church clock began to chime the hour. She made a sound of vexation. “Oh, dear, is it three? Heavens, now I truly am late!”

  “On another journalistic expedition, are you?”

  “Yes.” She folded the paper and held it out to him. “Thank you again for showing it to me.”

  He shook his head in refusal. “That’s yours.”

  “But it’s the first copy. Don’t you want it?”

  “No. I want Mrs. Bartleby to have it.” He gestured over his shoulder to the open carriage at the curb. “I have my carriage. I can easily take you where you are going.”

  “Thank you, but it wouldn’t be proper for me to ride in your carriage. And in any case, it isn’t necessary. I’m only going to Au Chocolat,” she added as they resumed walking, “and that establishment is on the next corner.”

  “You have an appointment with a confectioner’s shop?”

  “Yes. I am meeting with the owner, Henri Bourget. Of course, he thinks he is meeting with Mrs. Bartleby’s secretary.”

  “Which reminds me of something I meant to ask you the other day. Isn’t posing as someone you’re not considered a lie?” he teased. “Or bad form, at least?”

  “I’m not the one who insisted upon secrecy. Besides, it is a minor prevarication to preserve journalistic integrity,” she said at once. “For purposes of research.”

  He laughed. “A confectioner’s is research, is it?”

  “It is! I am toying with a theme of sweets for our third issue. Desserts, comfits, that sort of thing. It was one of the ideas I told you about last Saturday. Don’t you remember?”

  “Um, of course. Have you a sweet tooth, Emma?”

  “Oh, yes. I adore sweets. Particularly chocolate.” She bit her lip and gave him a helpless look as they paused at the corner. “I fear you have learned my secret weakness. I would do anything for chocolate.”

  “Would you?” he murmured and paused to give her a searching glance. “Do you mind if I accompany you?” he asked after a moment. “I should like to purchase some chocolates for my sisters. As you so rightly pointed out, I need to begin selecting gifts myself, and chocolate is a gift I know would please all my sisters.” He reached for the newspaper in her hand. “Allow me to carry that.”

  “Thank you. Do your sisters like chocolate, then?”

  “They adore the stuff. Baffling to me, but there it is.”

  “You don’t like chocolate?” When he shook his head, she stared at him and began to question his sanity. “How is that possible?”

  “I’ve a preference for savories and salty things. I’ve a particular addiction to sardines.”

  That made her laugh. “Now you are joking.”

  “On the contrary, I am perfectly serious.”

  Her laughter subsided, and she once again studied him with doubt. Then she sighed. “I never can quite tell when you are teasing me.”

  “Yes, I know, and because of that, I am beginning to appreciate just how much fun teasing you can be. I intend to do a great deal of it from now on.”

  “Lovely,” she said with a groan. Now she’d never get any work done. “That’s just lovely.”

  When faced with a woman’s confession that she would do anything for chocolate, a truly honorable man would have refused to speculate on what the word anything encompassed. But Harry had been deemed a dissolute fellow who lived an immoral life, and as the owner of Au Chocolat gave them a tour of the premises. Harry’s thoughts were occupied with all sorts of wicked possibilities.

  Their tour ended in a sort of reception room, where a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice awaited them, flanked by crystal flutes and a selection of chocolates on a silver tray. Also on the table was a paperboard box wrapped in pink tissue paper and white silk ribbon. Monsieur Bourget gestured to the table. “Perhaps your lordship and the secretary of Madame Bartleby would care to sample our truffles and have a glass of champagne?”

  Emma looked at the selection of chocolates as if she’d just found heaven. “How thoughtful of you, monsieur.”

  The Frenchman indicated the pink-wrapped box on the table. “Please ask Mrs. Bartleby to accept this selection of truffles as our gift. We believe we make the finest liqueur chocolates in London, and we hope she will conclude the same in her column.”

  “I will be sure she receives them,” Emma answered with a straight face, “but, of course, I cannot guarantee what her opinion will be. Alas, I am merely her secretary.”

  The Frenchman had no chance to reply, for at that moment another gentleman entered the room, a frown of concern on his face. He came to where they stood by the table and said something to Bourget in a low voice.

  A brief exchange of words in French followed, only about half of which Harry understood, for they spoke rapidly and his French had always been awful, but there seemed to be a problem with the tempering of a particular batch of chocolate.

  Bourget turned to his guests and spread his hands wide with a smile and a shrug. “Alas, they can do nothing without me. Miss Dove, Vicomte Marlowe, I fear I must leave you for a moment. If you will pardon me?”

  When they nodded, he gestured to the table. “Enjoy the truffles. I shall return in a few moments.” With a bow to them, he departed with the other Frenchman, leaving Harry and Emma alone in the room.

  Harry turned toward her and set aside the newspaper he’d been carrying to reach for the bottle of champagne. “Shall we avail ourselves of Monsieur Bourget’s hospitality?” he asked, pouring a glass for each of them.

  Emma put her little notebook and pencil in her reticule, then set the ecru linen bag on the table. She unbuttoned her gloves, pulled them off, and laid them beside the reticule. Sipping champagne, she studied the selection of sweets for a moment, then she chose a truffle of dark chocolate with thin ribbons of pink icing on top.

  Harry studied her as she daintily took half the truffle into her mouth, and he smiled at the expression of ecstasy that crossed her face, his imagination going wild. When he saw a drop of liqueur filling slide down her bottom lip and onto her chin, he was quick to take advantage of a heaven-sent opportunity.

  Even as she set down her flute of champagne and started to reach for one of the folded linen serviettes on the table, Harry was lifting his hand to her face. He caught the droplet of liqueur on the pad of his thumb, then lifted his hand to his own mouth. Her eyes widened as she watched him suck at the tacky spot.

  “Hazelnut,” he murmured and glanced down. “It was delicious, but I didn’t get any chocolate.”

  Before she could guess his intent and stop him with some ridiculous rule of etiquette, he grasped her wrist, lifted her hand, and opened his mouth. His lips closed around her fingers and the remaining half of the truffle.

  She gasped, but though she tried to pull her hand away, he wouldn’t let her. She glanced at the door, then back at him as he slowly pulled the candy from her fingers with his mouth.

  He saw her lips quiver and heard her breathing quicken. He perceived the change in her body, a purely feminine reaction of passion tempered by modesty. By innocence. Harry’s body began to burn.

  Rosy color came up in her cheeks. She took another desperate glance around and tried again to pull her hand
away, but he wouldn’t let her.

  “Not yet,” he murmured around the chocolate in his mouth, still holding on to her wrist. “I missed a bit.”

  He swallowed the bite of truffle, then pulled the tip of her forefinger into his mouth. She made a startled sound, and he knew she was shocked by what he was doing and by her own body’s response. He could feel her pulse racing against his thumb as he sucked the last vestiges of chocolate from her fingertip with slow, deliberate relish.

  Her resistance began melting away as he licked chocolate off her fingers one by one. Her hand relaxed in his hold. Her gold-tipped lashes lowered, and she closed her eyes. When he turned her hand over and pressed a kiss to her palm, she made a soft little sigh. Her fingers curved around his face, the damp tips caressing his cheek, sending desire coursing through every nerve ending in his body.

  He flicked his tongue over her palm, and he felt the shiver that ran through her. He lifted his head, watching her face as he lowered her hand and eased his body closer.

  She sensed his intent, for she lifted her face without opening her eyes and parted her lips. Pure instinct, he judged, doubting she even realized what she was so prettily asking for. If she had, she would surely have called a halt, but all her senses were focused on only one thing: the awakening of her own desire.

  It was one of the most erotic things Harry had ever seen in his life.

  He didn’t have much chance to enjoy it. The tap of footsteps in the corridor told him someone was coming, and after pressing a quick kiss to her knuckles, he let go of her hand. By the time Bourget reentered the room, Emma’s dreamy expression was gone, and Harry was on the other side of the table, studying the truffles as if trying to make up his mind.

  “Once again, forgive me,” the Frenchman said, coming toward them.

  “Pray do not distress yourself, monsieur,” Harry replied and picked up a truffle. Looking at Emma, he added, “We have been thoroughly enjoying ourselves.”

  She made a choked sound, her cheeks scarlet.

  He grinned at her and took a bite of truffle.

  She flattened her palm on the table beside the tray and leaned toward him, her eyes narrowing as she watched him eat the candy. “I thought you did not care for chocolate.”

  Harry donned his best innocent air. “Why, Miss Dove, what ever gave you that idea?”

  Chapter 11

  It has been my duty, dearest Emma, to guide you into womanhood. To instruct you in proper conduct, to steer you through the difficult dilemmas of your youth, and to protect you from the evils of this world. I have tried to instill within you a true sense of what it means to be a lady, and when I look at you now, I know I have succeeded. I am proud of you, my dear. So very proud.

  Mrs. Lydia Worthington’s final words to her niece, 1888

  Emma suspected Auntie would not be so proud of her now. As she and Marlowe left Au Chocolat and started back toward Little Russell Street, neither of them spoke, and Emma was glad of it, for her feelings were in such disarray, mere conversation was beyond her.

  She knew certain things were wrong. Everything in her upbringing told her that. Allowing a man to lick chocolate off her fingers was wrong. Allowing a man to sit so close to her at a picnic that his leg touched hers and his hand brushed against her thigh was wrong. Had Aunt Lydia been with them during either of those incidents, no such liberty would ever have been allowed. Had Auntie’s mere presence not proved a sufficient deterrent, her pointed little cough or the delicate tap of her parasol would have done the trick.

  Notwithstanding Beatrice and her most excellent Mr. Jones, for whom she had bent the rules a bit, Emma had advised young women to rigidly enforce the boundaries of propriety in her manuscripts. Were Mrs. Bartleby to find herself in such a predicament as Emma had been in this afternoon, that lady would have stopped Marlowe at once and slapped his face.

  Emma feared she was not made of such stern stuff as her fictional creation.

  When Marlowe had licked chocolate from her hand and sucked on her fingertips, she’d been so caught up in how it made her feel that stopping him and slapping his face had never occurred to her. The touch of his mouth on her skin had vanquished all her good sense and staunch principles in an instant. How mortifying to know her convictions were so shallow.

  She cast a sideways glance at him as he walked beside her. He had never behaved this way toward her before. He had teased her sometimes, of course, and talked a bit of his nonsense now and then, but this was not the same. The way he teased her now was personal, intimate, flirtatious. No man had ever flirted with her before. No man had ever made improper advances upon her person, and Marlowe’s sudden propensity to do so was baffling. He could behave this way with any number of women, and had surely done so many times. Why her? Why now?

  I should very much like to kiss you.

  In her youth, she had sometimes thought of Mr. Parker and dreamt of kisses. She’d put aside notions of that sort long ago, buried them deep down inside herself, along with her broken heart and her crushed hopes. But she could feel those secret, romantic dreams flaring back up, dreams of a different man’s kisses—a man far less proper, far more presumptuous than Mr. Parker had ever been, a man who wanted to kiss her and made no secret of the fact, a man who made her wonder, just as she had done as a girl, what it would be like to be kissed.

  Emma glanced at him again and felt an overpowering, giddying rush of excitement. She wanted his kiss. It was wrong, she reminded herself, for a man to kiss a woman to whom he was not married, or at the very least engaged, and Marlowe was the least likely man on earth to marry anyone. He was a corrupt, worldly man who had illicit liaisons with dancing girls. And it wasn’t as if she wanted to marry him anyway.

  They paused at the corner, and still watching him, Emma touched the fingers he had kissed to her lips.

  He turned his head, looked at her, and smiled. Her breathing stopped, and her heart gave a leap of queer, painful pleasure within her breast.

  It was too much, that feeling. She looked away and jerked her hand down. She was a steady person, she reminded herself as they crossed the street. She did not get stirred up or want what was forbidden. She was not giddy. She was not wanton.

  “What’s wrong, Emma?”

  Marlowe’s voice broke into her thoughts. “After what happened, I don’t see how you can ask me such a question, my lord.”

  He laughed. “After what happened, I think you should call me Harry.”

  Emma made a sound of exasperation. “I daresay you do, my lord.”

  He shrugged, shifting tomorrow’s edition of the Social Gazette and the boxes of chocolate he carried for his sisters to his other arm. “It was only a kiss on your hand.”

  “You make it sound so innocent!” She realized she had raised her voice, and she took a quick glance around as they walked to make sure no one was within earshot, but the London traffic was loud enough to prevent any other pedestrians from hearing their conversation.

  “I may not be as…as knowledgeable as you in matters of this kind,” she said, returning her gaze to his. “But even I know you were not merely kissing my hand! You were…you were…” Her hand began to tingle, her whole body grew warm, and words failed her.

  She looked away, thrusting her gloved hands in the pockets of her skirt, and quickened her pace, but Marlowe kept up with her easily, his long strides much more relaxed than her jittery steps. “Emma,” he said as they turned onto her street, “nothing happened.” The very gentleness of his voice only made things worse. “It was harmless fun.”

  “It was not harmless. Anyone could have walked into that room and seen what you were doing!”

  “No one did.”

  “But they could have! And it would have been my reputation that suffered for it, not yours.”

  For the first time, a shadow of guilt crossed his face. His gaze shifted away from hers. “You didn’t stop me.”

  “You wouldn’t let go of my hand.”

  “You weren’t pullin
g very hard.”

  She could not argue with that, for it was true. “And it was very wrong of me! Oh, how could I have allowed you to do such a wicked thing?”

  “You think what just happened was wicked? Emma, you’re not going to go to hell for this, you know. No one’s going to send you to bed without any supper or take away your Christmas presents.”

  That ignited her temper, adding to her already tempestuous emotions. “Don’t make fun of me!” she flared, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk a few feet from her front door.

  He sobered at once and also came to a halt. “I’m not. But it seems to me you are getting awfully worked up over a harmless flirtation, and I do not understand why.”

  Because of the way it made me feel.

  She wanted to shout those words at him in the midst of the street. Instead, she took a deep breath and turned away. She walked to the door of her building. “Things like that are never harmless,” she murmured over her shoulder, striving to remember Auntie’s dire warnings from her girlhood. “Thinks like that can lead to—” She stopped, hand on the doorknob.

  Behind her, he gave a low, throaty chuckle. “In a confectioner’s shop? Believe me, if I’d intended what happened to lead anywhere, I’d have gotten you alone in a much more romantic place before I ever started kissing your hand.”

  “How very reassuring!” She started to open the door, but his palm flattened against it, preventing her from taking refuge inside.

  “What is this really about?” he asked.

  “Let me go.” When he didn’t comply, she turned around to face him and scowled. “I cannot imagine what people will think about a man accosting a woman at her door in this ungentlemanlike manner.”

  “What people? Your landlady? It occurs to me that you spend a great deal of time worrying about what other people think.”

  “It is always important to consider the opinions of others.”

  “No, it’s not. If you’re looking for what is right and wrong, you won’t find it in other people’s opinions. You won’t find it in etiquette books. There’s only one way to figure out right and wrong.” He leaned forward, and without warning, he touched her just beneath her breastbone.