“Zara’s just far too observant for everyone else’s comfort,” Anthony said, wiping his lips. “And since she both knows and is no longer in this room, why don’t you come over here and sit with me?”
Alison hopped up and almost ran around the table, then squeaked as Anthony grabbed her arm and pulled her down to sit on his lap. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him. “Oh, how I’ve missed that,” she murmured.
“So have I,” Anthony said. “Just a little more than two weeks now.”
“I’m having such trouble keeping this secret. What would it hurt to be together in public now?”
“We’ve made it this far, haven’t we?” He kissed her and twined his fingers in hers. “It’s not that much longer. And I’m going into the country again in two days, so I won’t be here to throw you into confusion the way I did yesterday at the Hantfords’ salon.”
“Yes, that was nearly a disaster.”
“I’m sorry.” He laid his cheek against hers and took a deep, satisfied breath. “I have an idea that might help satisfy that passion of yours. My townhouse has a library—it’s small, only a few hundred books, but it’s supposed to be fairly valuable and I have no idea what’s in it. I don’t suppose you’d care to take a look?”
“Would I? That sounds so exciting! I—”
He stopped her with a long, slow kiss. “Sorry to interrupt you,” he said finally, while Alison tried to get the world to stop spinning, “but you get this light in your eyes when you’re happy about something, and I couldn’t help myself.”
“And how do I look when I look at you?” she asked with a smile, touching his cheek.
He smiled back at her. “Joyful,” he said. “You see me as a better man than I know myself to be.”
“I see you for who you are.”
“Then I must be a much better man than I thought.”
She kissed him again, then rose, though she didn’t remove her hand from his. “I have to return to your mother soon,” she said, “but can I look at your library tomorrow?”
“I’ll call for you just after dinner. That will give me time to find a spare key for you. No sense you having to wait until I return from my estate.” He squeezed her hand. “I love you, you know.”
“I can tell. You just gave me a library. Let’s have coffee, and you can escort me back to the Dowager’s apartment.”
“With pleasure, Countess.”
By comparison to the rest of the townhouse, which was decorated in the most modern style, pale woods contrasting with rich jewel-toned colors, the library looked like the set of a historical melodrama. Its heavy bookcases and the claw-footed desk looked like someone’s idea of a library, right down to the hooded brass light Device on the desk and the portrait hanging on the wall behind it. Alison, her hands on her hips, looked up at the painting. The man looked back at her with a smile that said he knew a secret, and he wanted to share it with her. She walked around the desk and saw the chair, in contrast to the rest of the furnishings, was a plain office chair on casters that rolled smoothly over the plank flooring when she pushed it. Unexpected. She looked back up at the previous owner. Now he seemed to be smiling in delight at her surprise. She wished she could have known him.
“I didn’t realize it was this dusty,” Anthony said swiping a finger across the fireplace mantel. “I’ll have Josie clean it up before you start. I don’t think I’ve been in here more than twice since I bought the place last year, contents intact.”
“Why didn’t the owner take it when he left?”
“It belonged to a man who passed away leaving only one heir. She was only interested in the profit she might make from it, and I thought—you’re going to think me terribly shallow—I thought all those books looked distinguished. At the time I was only concerned about impressing the ladies I flirted with.”
“Well, I’m impressed. This is a real collection, not just a bunch of books someone bought as a job lot because the spines all matched. Oh, I love this one!”
“There’s that light in your eyes again,” Anthony laughed. “I take it this was a good idea?”
“It was an excellent idea. What would you like me to do with them? Reorganize? Value the collection?”
“I would like you to do whatever satisfies you. Though if you find anything interesting, I’d like to hear about it. Zara’s right that you have a knack for getting other people interested in your passion. I want to know about the things you love.”
“I’ll try not to be boring.” She laid the book aside and took his hand. “Are you sure you need to leave?”
“I’ve already put it off for a week because there’s this incredible woman I keep seeing around the city and I was hoping I could convince her to kiss me.”
“Anthony, we can’t let the servants see us. They’re as prone to gossip as anyone.”
He put his arms around her waist. “Then we’ll just have to be very, very careful.”
Chapter Twelve
Alison wrapped her fur-lined cloak more tightly around herself and wished the heating Device embedded in the coach floor were a little more powerful. Outside, light snow covered the road and the shops lining it, though with the sun shining as brightly as it was, the snow probably wouldn’t last past noon. Across from her, Carola shivered a little; she was wearing fashionable shoes that were too thin for the weather. Alison’s own shoes weren’t much better, but it was ridiculous to wear boots for such scant snow.
The shop bell jangled, and the Dowager emerged, trailed by a pair of shop assistants carrying parcels. The Dowager climbed the two short steps into the carriage while the assistants stowed the packages securely atop it. “Thank you,” the Dowager said, tipping them both, and then the coach jerked into motion and took them away down the street.
“I do appreciate your assistance, ladies,” the Dowager said. “It is so difficult to choose Wintersmeet gifts without help, don’t you think? And I so enjoy shopping. I hope it is not too tedious for you.”
“Not at all, Milady,” Simone said, putting down the hood of her white velvet cloak trimmed with ermine. “It’s fun to buy things for other people, don’t you agree, girls?”
Alison nodded, though privately she thought it would be nice to pay someone to do her shopping for her, at least for the people she didn’t care about but felt obligated to give to, like Elisabeth Vandenhout. She’d already sent her father’s gift by post a week ago, and yesterday a very special gift had arrived from Quinn Press, one she’d had to hide under her bed because she couldn’t explain why she’d ordered something so expensive for Anthony North. He’d been gone six days and they had been six surprisingly peaceful days, despite the whirlwind of shopping and social calls the Dowager was permanently at the center of. It was a little embarrassing that her longing for him could be so blunted by her enjoyment of his library. She went almost every afternoon for the few hours of the Dowager’s nap time to remove books from the shelves, clean them, and rearrange them by the system she’d learned at the Scholia from Henry Catherton. His system had the benefit of being simple to learn and simple to understand, and if Anthony ever decided he wanted to take up reading, he would have no trouble finding the books he wanted. And it was good practice for her.
They returned to the Dowager’s apartment, put away their purchases, and joined the other ladies for dinner, then Alison changed out of her morning clothes into an old shirt and trousers she didn’t mind getting dirty, tied her hair back, and threw her fur-lined cloak over the ensemble. It made her look very odd, like a charwoman trying on the mistress’s clothing, but it kept her warm and the day was far colder than she’d expected. If she could finish one more bookcase today, the entire job would be done before Wintersmeet. That left her feeling both pleased and a little empty, the way she always felt when a project was nearly completed. Though it would be nice to show her work to Anthony, even if he wouldn’t fully appreciate it.
The townhouse was silent and a little cold; Anthony hired his household staff from a
local agency and didn’t keep them on while he was away. Alison turned up the light and heat Devices in the library, threw her cloak over the chaise longue, and set to work. The more time she spent with the books, the more fervently she wished she could have met its owner. It didn’t have a lot of intrinsic value, though she’d made some remarkable finds and had set aside a rare second edition of Campanile for her father to value; he was the expert on early block printing. But she suspected it would have been of great value to the owner. She was beginning to get a sense of the kind of man he’d been, someone who loved to travel (Vernon’s South of Nowhere) and was fascinated by people (two copies of The Courts of the Veriboldan Queens, both editions) and a great lover of the contemporary novel, with whole shelves of books she herself loved and owned. She climbed onto the arm of a chair and reached high up to put away Heart of Steel, one of her favorites, shame the rest of the trilogy was out of print, and heard Anthony say, “Surprise.”
She staggered, missed her footing, and gave a little shriek as she fell. Anthony darted forward and caught her. “Sorry,” he said. “That was stupid.”
“Just give me a moment to catch my breath,” she said. He set her down on the chaise longue and took her hand. “That was certainly a surprise.”
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right.” She drew a deep breath. “I know you never said, but I was under the impression you weren’t coming back until Wintersmeet.”
“I couldn’t bear not seeing you one day longer. Besides, the city’s much more fun this time of year than the country, all those parties. How have you been?”
“Busy. Your mother knows so many people, and they all must have gifts. So I’ve done a lot of shopping. And a lot of work on your library.”
“I can see. Alison, I didn’t realize reorganizing the library meant taking it to bits.”
“Sometimes building something new means tearing the old apart first. This way is better than trying to sort out what needs to change, a little at a time.” She plucked a few strands of hair out of her mouth and pushed them behind her ears, discovered her hair had come down entirely on one side, and removed her hairband and tried to comb through the curly tresses with her fingers. She just had too much hair. This would have to do until she could get back to the palace and find a real comb.
She glanced up to see Anthony watching her with an unreadable expression. “May I?” he said, and without waiting for permission he slid his hands through her hair and began finger-combing the tangles. It felt wonderful. She closed her eyes and smiled at his touch, even when his hands caught on a knot and tugged a little. Pity she couldn’t have this every day.
His hands paused, and she felt his breath warm on her face just before he kissed her, gently, sliding his hands from her hair to cup her face. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him back. Oh, how she’d missed this, his lips on hers, the spicy smell of his cologne and the slight roughness of his cheeks against hers. She kissed him more deeply and he responded by putting his hands on her shoulders and easing her back to lie against the sloping arm of the sofa. He was leaning over her, his chest barely pressing against hers, and she was very aware she wasn’t wearing anything under her work shirt but a thin silky half-slip that did nothing to contain or support her breasts, and she wanted to feel his hands on them so badly her body ached.
As if he could read her mind, he leaned more heavily on one elbow and slid his other hand under both shirt and slip to caress her breast, his gentle fingers sliding along its curve and grazing her nipple. She made a sound she never dreamed she’d hear herself make and tore at her shirt, desperate to get it out of the way, it was in the way of his hands and she couldn’t bear it any longer. Anthony helped her free herself from the fabric and touched her, still so gently, then he bent to kiss her breasts and she cried out because she had never felt anything like this in her life and she wanted more of it.
Her cry seemed to trigger something in him, because he moved from kissing her breasts back to her lips, and he was tugging at the buttons of his shirt until he could remove it and throw it across the room, where it landed on the desk corner and then fell to the floor. He put his arms around her and pulled her close to him, skin against skin, and they kissed desperately, wildly, until Alison felt her breath coming in short gasps and she clutched at him, unable to touch him enough to satisfy her need.
He kissed her neck, her shoulder, then her lips again, and she moaned and thrust herself against him, wanton and not caring about it. He put his hand between them, pushing her away, and she felt a pang of fear that she was doing something wrong, but he was only fumbling at the buttons of her trousers one-handed, his other hand tangled in her hair. She almost started to help him with the finicky buttons, but from some distant rational part of her brain came the awareness that they were on a chaise longue in his chilly library, and they didn’t share a bond, and she thought, Not this way. Him, only and ever him, but not this way. So instead she took his hand away from the buttons, turned her face away from those devastating kisses, and used her other hand to push at his shoulder. “No,” she said.
Unable to reach her face, he nuzzled her shoulder. “Alison, please,” he groaned, and despite herself she shivered at the passion in his voice.
“This isn’t right,” she whispered, “we both know it isn’t right. No, Anthony.”
He shuddered, then dropped his head to rest on her shoulder, silent. Then he released her and went to retrieve his shirt, still without speaking. Alison felt cold from more than just the chill in the air. She found her shirt and her slip and put them on. He wasn’t looking at her. He was angry with her. She remembered tearing off her clothes, thrusting her body against him, and burned with shame. She’d led him on and then made him stop, and now he hated her. She couldn’t find her hairband. Her loose hair had started the whole thing. Maybe he would think she was being a tease, leaving it down, when it was just that she couldn’t find the damn hairband.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice. There it was, under her leg. She tied her hair back, roughly, not caring whether or not it was messy.
“Why are you sorry? I’m the one with no self-control,” Anthony said.
His voice sounded so bitter, so disparaging of himself, that her heart was filled with compassion for him. “You stopped when I asked you to,” she said, looking for the right words to reassure him.
“I shouldn’t have started in the first place,” he said. He still wasn’t looking at her. She put her hand on his knee.
“You make it sound as if I had nothing to do with it,” she said. “I might as well say I shouldn’t have responded to your touch like that. Or are you suggesting I’m some kind of Device-driven doll with no volition of my own?”
“Not that. But I’m aware of what my reputation is and I don’t want you to think you’re just…the one who’s available.”
“I didn’t think that at all. Honestly, I don’t think I was thinking at all. It was…wonderful. But I’m just not ready and I don’t think you are either.”
He laughed and put his hand over hers. “I certainly felt ready.” He kissed her cheek. “But I think you’re right, and I also think we shouldn’t be in this house alone together anymore. When do you come here?”
“From twelve-thirty to two-thirty. It’s the only free time I have.”
“I’ll stay away until three, then. Just over a week, and we don’t have to be a secret anymore.”
“And we won’t be so desperate because we can’t see each other.”
“True.” He kissed her again. “I love you.”
“And I love you. Now I’m going back to the palace to comb my hair and pin it up where it can’t drive either of us mad with desire. I had no idea it had such unholy powers.”
The next day, Anthony kept his word and didn’t appear, though Alison did see the butler and the maid, Josie, which told her he was still in town. She made her way through a few more shelves, got distracted by some interesting novels, and l
eft with a regretful glance at the chaise longue. What would it hurt, really, if they slept together? It wasn’t as if it would be casual sex—no, it would definitely be the polar opposite of casual sex. Her body still tingled when she remembered how he’d touched her and kissed her, that look in his eyes of such delight and triumph. She wrapped her cloak more closely around her and trotted down the townhouse stairs to the coach the butler had summoned for her, and settled in for the ride back to the palace. She needed to stop entertaining those fantasies if she wanted to keep her composure when she read to the Dowager and the ladies that afternoon.
Another day, and she managed not to be distracted by some interesting histories of Tremontane to finish all but three shelves. All the lifting of books had left her a little achy. She clearly needed more exercise. She sat in a chair at the window, drinking some hot tea the maid brought her, and looked out over the street. Small gray heaps marked where people had shoveled snow off their walks and into the depressions between the pavers where trees had been planted. They looked as weary as she felt, their leafless branches sagging a little despite their bearing so little snow. Low gray clouds suggested another storm was coming, bringing snow to cover the dispirited streets and make everything look so beautiful. She swallowed wrong and coughed to clear her lungs. Coughing made her aches worse. She set her tea aside, stretched, and put on her cloak. She would be able to finish tomorrow, probably before the Dowager’s nap time was over, and she could get some rest herself.
She stopped to consider the chaise longue more seriously this time. Suppose she didn’t leave. Suppose she was still here when Anthony returned. It didn’t have to be the chaise longue; he had a bedroom. She could wait for him there, wearing nothing but the cloak—no, she told herself sharply, you’d both hate yourselves afterward. But it was an image she had trouble shaking.
That evening, the Dowager and her ladies gathered in the Dowager’s sitting room and wrapped Wintersmeet gifts. Alison sipped champagne and ate tiny cakes and giggled with the other women, even though she wasn’t normally a giggler. “And I’ve already received three Wintersmeet gifts,” Carola exclaimed, “one from each of the three B’s! I don’t know what to do about it!”
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