A View to a Kiss

by Caroline Linden

  The soft sound of cloth against wood almost escaped her notice. For a moment she sat frozen in uncertainty, then whirled around to see the familiar figure unfolding in front of the window. Her lips parted—after longing so desperately for him to come, she seemed struck dumb now that he was here—and he stepped away from the window. “Mariah?”

  She jumped at the sound of her name. “Oh! Oh, Harry, you came.” She surged out of her seat and halfway across the room toward him, then stopped, wringing her hands. “I didn’t know if you would.”

  “Did you not?” She had left a single candle lit, and it picked out the highlights of his features. He wore plain dark clothes that rendered him almost part of the shadows, although the collar of a white shirt showed around his neck. His eyes, bright and sharp, were fixed unwaveringly on her.

  “Well—Well…” She cleared her throat. “I hoped you would.”

  “Ah.” He finally glanced away from her, then back. “Why did you ask me to come?”

  “Because…” All her courage and fortitude seemed to have fled. She could barely speak more than a word at a time. She wet her lips and raised her chin. “Because I must speak to you. And—And because I have missed you so!” The last burst forth before she could restrain herself, and it seemed to release the tension in the room. Harry’s face relaxed, and then Mariah was running the rest of the distance to him to be caught up in his arms and held against his heart.

  “Having been unable to stay away thus far, why should I begin now?” His arms tightened around her. “Are you all right?”

  She pushed back to see him. For a moment she just looked, feasting on the sight of him. In clothing that fit, no longer stooped and powdered, he might have been a completely new man—except for the familiar gleam in his hazel eyes. He seemed taller this close, more powerful; nothing at all like the hump-backed old man he had appeared to be, nor the quiet, almost invisible secretary.

  “Are you all right?” he repeated with a small smile.

  “Oh yes,” she said fervently. “Very much so, now that you are here.”

  His smile deepened and he pulled her to him again. She closed her eyes as he held her. “God, how I’ve missed you.” Then his arms loosened. “But this can’t be why you sent for me.”

  Feeling steadier now, Mariah shook her head. Her nerves had made her uncertain before, but the feel of Harry’s arms reassured her. This was no fancy or whim she would regret in the morning. This was what she wanted more than anything. “You can’t keep sneaking in to see me at nights.” Looking grim, he shook his head. “And you won’t be Lord Wroth anymore, will you, so you can’t even come to call in that way.” Again he shook his head. “Then there is only one thing we can do. We must run away together.”

  He stared at her, then released her and stepped away. “Do you know what you’re suggesting?”

  She followed and put a finger on his lips. “Listen to me. My father will never give his permission for you to call on me, but if we run away together, he’ll have no choice—”

  “Oh, he’ll have a choice.” Harry sighed. He took her hand and pressed her knuckles almost absently against his cheek. Mariah’s heart fluttered at the gentle affection in the gesture. “You think he’ll relent and forgive all if we run away and force his hand. Perhaps he will—but perhaps he won’t. He could disown you, cut you off and never see you again.”

  She had considered that, but didn’t think it was possible. Her father adored her, and if he even considered disowning her, he’d have her mother to deal with. “No, he won’t.”

  Harry dropped her hand and paced away from her. “He might. Believe me, he might.” He ran his hands over his face, looking weary. “My mother…My mother was from a good family, very well-born and proud. My father was no one. She ran off with him thirty years ago and hasn’t seen or heard from her family since. Believe me, Mariah, it could happen to you, no matter how much your father loves you. Men like him don’t like to be crossed.”

  She thought about that for a moment. Would she regret it, if her parents refused to speak to her again? She would be sad, no question…but she would still have Harry. “Did your mother regret it?”

  His mouth tightened. “You are not the same person as my mother.”

  “I should hope not!” He smiled reluctantly, and Mariah beamed back. She took a step after him. “Did your mother regret it?” she asked again, softly. “Is she happy with your father still, with you and your brother and sisters?”

  “She had to learn to cook, you know, and mend and clean. It was not easy for her.”

  “So she’s miserable, and wishes she’d never met your father?”

  He sighed, but his eyes crinkled. “No, she’s still very happy. But you should consider the risk.”

  “Hmm.” She clasped her hands behind her back and took a nonchalant step after him. “So to warn me off, you tell me about a woman who ran off with a remarkable man who adores her, and she’s blissfully happy. That is a terrible consequence indeed. Unless…” She sidled another step closer. “Unless you are trying to let me know, delicately, that you don’t really care for me.”

  “You know I am not.”

  She lifted one shoulder, still inching toward him. “But you’ve never said anything on the subject one way or another. Perhaps it is all my imagination—perhaps you would rather I had never come onto the balcony that night of my parents’ ball. Perhaps you came creeping into my room all those nights after because you felt sorry for me—”

  Finally, ruefully, he laughed. “Sorry? The last thing I have ever felt for you was pity, darling.”

  “Good,” she said, “because I have been in love with you since you kissed me in the garden at Chelsea.”

  Harry looked at her for the longest time. If she hadn’t felt the rapid beat of his heart beneath her cheek when he’d held her, she might have doubted; she might have begun to worry. Instead she waited, sensing he was arguing with himself. He thought he was beneath her. He would try to tell her he was nothing to her, or a danger to her, or some other nonsensical idea Mariah didn’t even want to hear unless it was to reject it so firmly and clearly, he would have to believe her. She had seen more worth and admirable qualities in Harry than in most other men of London, even before he threw himself in front of an exploding powder keg to protect her.

  Abruptly, Harry walked away from the window. He picked up the lone candle she had left burning on the dressing table and began lighting the other lamps. As light filled the room, Mariah watched him greedily, his face and form materializing in living, vibrant flesh as the shadows were banished.

  When the room was filled with light, Harry put down the candle and turned to face her. His hands fell to his sides and for a long moment he just stood, letting her look her fill at him without disguise or subterfuge.

  “My name is Henry Sinclair,” he said quietly. “My father is Thomas Sinclair, manager of the New Towne Theater in Birmingham…” He paused, as if waiting for her response. Mariah managed a tiny shake of her head, at a loss. “He is a commoner—an actor. Nobody of consequence, no family, no fortune, no connection to speak of. And I…” He paused again. “And I am a spy.”

  She had guessed as much. “For whom?”

  “The Home Office.” He was picking at the cuff of his heavy woolen coat. To her shock, he slid a long slender blade from the cuff, rapier thin and glittering sharp. He placed it on the dressing table. From his pocket he produced a pair of small thin tools, and from somewhere inside his coat a small pistol. He shrugged out of the coat to reveal a leather sheath strapped under his arm, the dagger she had seen the night he pulled Lord Dexter off her. All this he placed on the dressing table. Then he faced her, in his shirtsleeves, and raised his hands wide. “You have always had questions, and I have never answered you, never as completely as you deserved. Ask me anything, and I will tell you, even the ugly, unpleasant parts. You cannot declare your heart”—his voice caught for a second—“without knowing.”

  Mariah looked at th
e weaponry, so foreign and so dangerous amid her feminine toiletries and hair combs. Deadly weapons for a dangerous man, whispered a little voice in her head, but the shiver that went down her spine wasn’t fear. “Have you ever killed anyone?”

  He lifted one shoulder. “Perhaps. I have certainly wounded a few men badly enough they could have died.”

  “Whom do you spy on?”

  “Everyone.”

  “Why?”

  A bitter smile cracked his somber expression. “My patriotic duty.”

  She stared at him. “My father?” she asked incredulously, a number of curious coincidences falling into order. “Of course…You were at my mother’s ball. You saw me at the Spencers’ ball. And the Avery soiree, and the musicale—”

  “Other men as well.” He folded his arms and looked at the floor. “I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing until recently. We were told it was to protect and not to watch.”

  “The Home Office is spying on my father?” she repeated. “Why? He’s done nothing wrong—”

  “No,” said Harry curtly. “He hasn’t. And now they know it.”

  She opened her mouth, ready to vent her rising outrage, then closed it as realization sunk in. “You proved it.” He jerked his head down, just a fraction of an inch, his expression still closed and dark. Mariah steadied herself with a hand on the wall. He had saved her more than once because he was lurking about. Spying? Watching? Protecting? If not for him, she and her father might well have died the other day near Carlton House. “And you saved our lives.”

  Harry let out his breath as if he’d been waiting for her to get to that. “By a lucky chance.”

  “Very lucky, I should say,” she muttered.

  “Yes. But you should know—Before you rashly declare your affection, you should know what sort of scoundrel you’ve gotten involved with. Don’t promise what you’ll regret in the morning.”

  Again her eyes strayed to the pile of weapons. “Do you love me?” she whispered. “Please tell me if I have been so mistaken…”

  Harry was shaking his head before she finished. “The first sight of you bewitched me. You held my heart in your hand the moment you asked me to come see you, even after I climbed into your room at midnight and wouldn’t tell you my name. If Dexter had hurt you, I’d have slit his throat without a moment’s regret, and if I hadn’t caught up to your coach in Piccadilly in time, I might have slit my own throat in grief. Do I love you? More than that small, simple phrase can convey. I love you enough that I cannot bear to ruin your life by taking you away from this life”—he swept one hand around the room—“and condemning you to mine.”

  “I see.” She raised her chin and put her hands on her hips. “Instead you will condemn me to an unhappy marriage to someone I could never love half as much as I love you. You shall be off ‘watching after’ people in Whitechapel and throwing yourself in front of bombs while I will have to suffer through some other man’s insipid lovemaking, always wishing it were you kissing me, and you making me laugh, and you holding me at night in bed—”

  Harry cursed, crossing the room in two long strides. Mariah gave a small, involuntary squeak as he caught her to him and kissed her, a deep, demanding kiss that made her stomach leap and her bones wilt.

  “You’re a plague,” he murmured, his nimble fingers unfastening her plain traveling dress. “You’ve infected my brain with a fever that drives out all sense and restraint.”

  She laughed, giddy in triumph. “A fine couple we shall be, I in my madness for you, and you with your fever for me…”

  Harry laughed. “Fine, indeed.” He pushed the fabric off her shoulders.

  “Shall I tell you my plan?” she asked, helpfully pulling her arms free of the sleeves as he slid the dress down past her hips until it crumpled to the floor along with her petticoat.

  “Later.” He swung her into his arms and carried her to her bed. Mariah watched with awe as he pulled his shirt over his head. She had seen statues, but nothing as fascinating as Harry. Her breath felt short as her eyes moved over the flex and bunch of muscles under his skin. There was such latent power in his body, she reached out to trace the swell of his bicep to reassure herself he was real. London had thought him a withered old man, she thought in amazement as her fingers skimmed over warm, solid muscle that quivered at her touch. His other arm was wrapped tightly in a bandage, and she felt a fierce tenderness well up inside her, that he had been injured protecting her.

  “Make love to me, Harry,” she whispered. His muscle clenched under her hand. “Please.”

  His eyes gleamed with amusement. “Forward wench.”

  She blushed, from excitement and anticipation. With some inborn female instinct, she knew he hadn’t been waiting for her formal invitation, that he’d been intent on making love to her since climbing in the window. And it was intoxicating, to know she had such power over him, this dangerous man who deposited an arsenal of weapons on her dressing table but kissed her so gently and sweetly. She ran her fingertips down his arm once more, shifting around until she was sitting on her knees close enough to see the pulse at the base of his throat. “I have thought about what you did once before. When you made me burn for you…”

  He kissed her, a light, lingering contact. “Have you?” Her corset loosened, the string coming undone in Harry’s hands.

  “Yes.” She shrugged her shoulders as he stripped the corset off, leaving her in only her thin chemise. “Every night you did not come to see me, I thought of it.”

  He made a soft growl low in his throat. “Did you? And what did you think of it?”

  Her heartbeat was so strong she could feel the blood throbbing through her veins, pulsing between her legs. “I wondered how long it would be until you did it again,” she whispered. “Until you touched me again…here.” She cupped one breast. His eyes dropped there and seemed to ignite. “And here…” Her voice was barely a thread of sound as she slid one hand between her legs. She was already warm and wet there, and she stroked her fingers back and forth, leaving a damp spot on her chemise. Harry’s face darkened with pure, feral desire as he watched, and she felt a heady rush of exhilaration. He was right to call her a forward wench; she certainly wasn’t a lady when he looked at her that way.

  “Far be it from me…” His hand closed over hers, large and callused but gentle, his fingers moving between hers to touch where she had touched. “…to disappoint a lady.” He kissed her mouth, bearing her back into her pillows, and Mariah pulled her hands free to wind her arms around his neck. Then there was no more conversation as her chemise came off, and Harry demonstrated how thoroughly he would not disappoint her, finding every sensitive spot and tender area on her body until she was shaking.

  “Tell me once more,” he whispered between kisses. “One last time, tell me you want this—me. Because you’re going to be very thoroughly ruined in a few minutes…”

  “I already am,” she said on a sigh, running her hands over the lean, firm lines of his back. “For every other man but you.” His eyes half closed as she scraped lightly with her fingernails, and Mariah stretched beneath him. The sensual creature no longer slumbered inside her; it had become her, writhing with need.

  “You bring me to my knees when you say things like that.” He slid down, trailing kisses over her collarbone. His breath warmed her nipple, and Mariah trembled even before he kissed her there, too. His hands had been running all over her, and yet when he touched between her legs, her whole body tensed in giddy anticipation.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he murmured. She thrashed her head from side to side, already feeling the storm gathering inside her belly. “God, you’re so beautiful, so wet…” His fingers were inside her now, just as before. She pressed her heels into the bed and pushed her hips against the delicious pressure he was exerting, making her body hum.

  When he pulled back, she could hardly see straight and her limbs shook. She murmured some inarticulate protest, grasping for him. Harry laughed, the sound strai
ned and dark, and then he moved over her, rising to his knees and unfastening his trousers. Sprawled on the bed, Mariah watched breathlessly as he peeled off the last of his clothing. She simply had to see…

  “Worried?” Harry asked.

  She dragged her eyes away from his cock, blushing that she had been caught staring and then blushing harder because she hadn’t been worrying, she had been thinking too much about touching him, that mysterious, virile part of him, and what it would feel like when he was inside her. Drat Joan and the naughty poems; perhaps she was too bold. “No,” she murmured. “I—I was thinking I would like to touch you.”

  Harry closed his eyes. His cock bobbed. “Later,” he said in a strained voice. “Well—perhaps just once…” His words choked off as she reached out and stroked him. “Blessed Christ,” he croaked, letting her explore him for a minute before grasping her knee and pushing it toward her chest. He bent down and pressed his mouth between her legs, licking her on that sensitive, pulsing spot. Mariah gasped, her body surging up against him. Then, before she could recover from the shock of it, he had pressed the head of his erection against her and nudged his way inside.

  She gulped in small, rapid breaths, feeling her body stretch. It didn’t hurt, but it felt tight and full and unbearably intimate. Slowly, he sank all the way into her, his hips settling between her thighs until she just wrapped her legs around his waist. The movement made her more aware of him, thick and hard, inside her, and she shivered, raising her eyes to Harry’s.

  His head had fallen forward, as if he were studying the place where his body joined hers. The tendons in his neck stood out, and his fingers shook as he slowly stroked one hand down the inside of her thigh until he touched her, there, where it made her gasp and arch her back because it felt like lightning crackling beneath her skin. He moved, sliding out of her, and then moved forward again, rocking his hips against her as he continued to touch her so exquisitely softly until the pleasure was almost suffocating.