by Charlie Lane
Allison glanced once more at Carson, then turned away. “It doesn’t matter. It can never be.”
Nora tapped Allison’s arm with her fan. “Oh? Why not?”
“He …” She tapped her foot, bouncing the hem of her skirt. She couldn’t talk about him in a ballroom amidst smiling dancers and jovial musicians. Impossible. But with a huff, she replied as best she could. “We don’t want the same things.”
Ada patted the back of her hand. “Unfortunate, indeed.”
“Hmm.” Nora tapped her chin. “But surely it’s not unfixable.”
“True,” Ada said. “Cass and I wanted different things.” She paused, her eyebrows drawing together thoughtfully. “But we really wanted each other. More than those other things.”
An interesting point. Did she want Carson more than she wanted a life free from rules and strictures? She’d known Carson less than a year and really known him for a little more than a week. Was it long enough to know she needed him more than she needed freedom? “I don’t know,” she whispered.
“Well, then.” Ada’s voice brooked no argument. “You had best find out.”
Allison turned back around, seeking out Carson’s tall form. Even starched and proper, the air around him cracked. She’d thought it boredom. And he was bored, but it was truer to say he sought his next adventure, eyes swinging wildly over all the assembled heads, looking for something, anything, interesting to happen. He felt as she did, as if time wasted away, and he couldn’t stop it.
He saw her, and the bland expression he wore shattered into shock. He turned away from Allison and pulled Lady Ann across the room.
He’d snubbed her! Absolutely not. “I’m sorry, Ada, Nora, but I must go.”
The Cavendish sisters followed her angry gaze to the quickly disappearing man across the crowd.
“Lord Trevor?” Nora’s voice squeaked with surprise. “Really?”
“I’d not have suspected it.” Ada’s voice rang with surprise, but she moderated her tone carefully. “He’s …” She pursed her lips.
Ada did not know what to say, but Allison did. “He’s wonderful. Surprising and heroic, and—oh!—he snubbed me! I have to catch up with him!”
“Surprising is right,” she heard Nora say as she slipped through the crush after Carson.
Allison crossed the room as quickly as the crowd allowed, craning her neck to keep Carson in sight. He wasn’t, as she expected, taking Lady Ann to the dance floor. Instead, he deposited her with his mother and left the ballroom. Allison followed him, entering a dark room just as he exited through another door at the room’s end.
“Carson!” she hissed loudly, pursuing him through the second door. “Carson!” she hissed again before he escaped the room through another door.
He cursed and turned to face Allision. “Good evening.”
Allison charged. “Good evening! Is that all you have to say after snubbing me?”
His face contorted, then he straightened, and his mask fell back in place. “I didn’t snub you, Allison. You need to return to the ballroom.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Because she needed to know what she wanted more, her freedom or him. And she needed to know what he wanted most as well—her or his secrets.
“Allison, why did you follow me here?”
“I’m angry with you.”
“That may be, but you have already told me you do not want me. Yet here we are, in a compromising position. If we’re caught, it won’t matter what you want, you’ll have to marry me.”
“As if we weren’t in a compromising position five days ago!”
He clenched his fingers. “True, but we escaped unscathed. We may not be so lucky tonight.”
Hm. He had a point, and she didn’t want to be compromised. But she had to know. The answer to Ada’s question would determine the rest of her life. If she didn’t find out the answer, the rest of her life would be based on incomplete information. The same compulsion she’d felt to uncover the identity of her book fairy drove her to find this out, too. That meant she needed time with him. She had to keep him here a little longer.
She appealed to the adventurous man she knew lurked just under his proper facade. “You don’t care, Carson. Not about propriety, not about the rules. Not really.”
He slumped back against the door, covering his face with his hands. “No, not really,” he groaned. His body shot off the door, and his arms wrapped around her waist. He winced and one arm loosened.
Allison pulled back and clasped the hand of his injured arm. “It still hurts!” She inspected it more closely.
“Yes, but it’s better. Right now, I don’t give a damn.” His lips crushed against hers, and Allison took her next breath with him.
As his hands pressed her stomach to the hard plane of his abdomen, as his lips traveled up her jaw and into her hair, Allison discovered her next adventure. “You.”
“Me? What about me? Devilishly handsome? Talented actor? Hero? Great ki—”
“Just you.” Her hands wandered up his chest, over the wide breadth of his shoulders and back, and tangled in the snowy starchiness of his cravat. She found the end and pulled.
“God, Allison, what are you doing?” Carson panted.
“I want this gone. You’re too much the priggish lord with it on. Carson, my Carson, is deliciously messy.”
He grinned against her lips. “Your Carson?”
“Only once this is gone!” She tugged again, but the cravat seemed to strangle him instead of loosen.
“Careful, love,” he choked out. “Easy. Let me.” He took control of the neckcloth, pushing her hands away. He tugged on the ends, wincing in pain.
“Good grief,” she chuckled, “you’re messy enough. Don’t hurt yourself. Let it be.”
He dropped his injured arm to his side and wrapped the other about her shoulders.
Allison turned her attention to his waistcoat buttons. She knew, intellectually, of the delightful musculature of his chest. She’d seen it on glorious display when the boxer had fixed his shoulder, but she hadn’t been fully invested in inspecting the sight, her attention distracted by his obvious pain. So now she unbuttoned his waistcoat, slipped her fingers between his waistband and his shirt, and tugged the fabric upward, letting her fingers creep underneath and across silky hot skin.
“Were you forged in an armory?” she whispered, incredulous.
Exploring the indentation behind her ear with his tongue, he didn’t respond. Allison leaned into the heady caress. Who needed a verbal response with this available? She clamped down the moan aching to part her lips and took his hands, leading him to a low settee. She pushed him down on to it, careful of his injured arm, then settled herself in his lap. His groan rasped across the sensitive skin of her neck, and so did the stubble on his jaw.
“Did you not shave today?” she asked.
“No. Can’t.”
“Because of your arm?” She touched it gingerly.
“No. My valet shaves me.”
“Then why aren’t you clean-shaven? Your mother must be wholly perplexed. She has an entire chapter dedicated to the perils of stubbly-cheeked men.”
“Can we not talk about my mother when you’re sitting in my lap?”
Oh, yes, Allison could see how that would be inappropriate.
“There are other things I’d rather do.” His one good arm tightened around her, his lips found the slope between her neck and shoulder. His breath sighed across the slope, bringing her entire body to life. “But I can’t do them. Not tonight. Allison—”
He intended to stop their interlude, deny her the opportunity to find out if she needed him or not. If she let him think, he’d escape her seduction. Then she’d give him no time to think. Allison silenced him with a kiss. She was by no means an expert at the activity, but the hard bulge growing underneath her told her she had promise. Grateful for the wide, low cut of her bodice, Allison shrugged one shoulder of the dress down, replacing the
sleeve with one of Carson’s wide, powerful hands. His eyes flashed. Allison recognized it as the very moment his brain clicked off and other parts of him took over.
“Good.”
She combed her fingers through his hair as he dropped his lips to her chest, kissing revealed skin. His hands caressed her breasts through her gown and chemise, and she wiggled to be free of the material. He accommodated her, slipping the gown and chemise down her arms until it pooled around her waist. All with one arm. Daily, he displayed hidden talents, didn’t he? A point in his favor.
“Gorgeous,” he whispered.
He thought her gorgeous. Another point.
Then his hands were on her, and a moan parted her lips. Her head fell back, and he kissed down the column of her throat, every kiss a brand. His hands branded her as well. The good one caressed her breasts, tightening her nipples into hard peaks. The injured one worked lower, hiking her skirt up, running fingers along the edge of her stockings, up her thigh to her pulsing center.
She tensed. Hadn’t she told him there was a line she wouldn’t cross? If she let him into this, her most secret place, there would be no lines left. No unmarried lady crossed this line.
Carson lifted his head and cupped her cheek. “Allison?” Her name, a worried question on his lips, settled the matter completely. He was a rogue but also a gentleman, and she would cross any line with him beside her.
She kissed him.
He reciprocated by tearing his lips away from hers and placing them on her breast. His tongue flicked, his lips sucked, his fingers teased, and Allison almost leaped right out of his lap.
His good arm held her tight, and she melted into his embrace, learning the way his caresses made her body ignite into sparks.
He shifted until she sat beside him on the settee. “Lie down.”
She did, wondering if giving his chest the same attention would produce an equally delightful sensation in him. She found the edge of his shirt, lifted it, and snuck her hands under as he lowered his body on top of her and began to speak. “Allison, I—”
“Don’t talk,” she begged. “Don’t think. Please, just have this adventure with me.” He hovered above her, unsure, so she changed her direction, letting her hands roam south until they found the bulging, strained placard of buttons. She tried to undo a button with one hand, keeping the other clutched on his shoulder. Impossible. She released him to let two hands do the work more efficiently. “Bollocks,” she hissed. Why were men’s breeches so ridiculously difficult to undo? Every fumbling second gave him time to rethink.
His steady hand joined her shaking ones, releasing the final stubborn button.
Thank heavens. At least some minor deity of misconduct blessed her this evening.
She pushed his breeches down and stroked the warm, silky skin of his hips. Her arms wrapped around his broad shoulders, and she lifted a leg, hooking it around his waist. She should be shy, right? She wasn’t. It felt right, there, especially since she found she could better lift her hips against him. Nothing stood between them but her drawers, and that barrier fell to his curious fingers. They slipped through the slit, found the core of her again, and played with her curls. His tongue played with her nipples. Her own hands, gripping his hips tightly, loosened their hold and explored the hard, rounded muscle of his backside. Then she explored everywhere else, played across every inch of him. It was a game, a dance, a concert building music inside of her.
His hand slipped away, and she reached to put it back, needing his warm, strong fingers anchoring her. He shifted her leg off his hip and increased the distance between them. Cold air rushed her fevered skin. No! But when she felt her drawers slip down, when she felt him tug them away, then settle himself where before his fingers had made an instrument of her, she let him do as he pleased.
“Closer,” she gasped.
“As close as can be, love,” he whispered, gently pushing inside of her. “Are you well?”
His words echoed the words he’d said to her just five days before, a lifetime ago it seemed, in her mother’s parlor. Same words, but everything had changed. She wrapped her arms around him, relishing the strength of the muscles rippling up his back. “Wonderfully well, but …”
“Yes, love?”
“Is that it?”
“It?”
“Is that all?”
“All?”
“I thought there was more to it.”
His lips slid into a sly smile. “That’s not all, you minx.”
“Oh? Then—”
He pushed further into her.
“Oh!”
He frowned and seemed about to speak again, but she cut him off with a kiss. She wasn’t precisely perfect at the moment, but the pain receded to nothing beside the exquisite, building pleasure of being filled with him. With her kiss, he relaxed and began to move, pulling away, then pushing back; a passionate give-and-take. His fingers found her center once more, and the sensations tingled, burning and piercing everywhere all at once, sweeping her past control. Allison wrapped arms and legs around Carson and burrowed her face in his neck as every muscle clenched in a glorious release.
She held on as he danced a round or two more and with a shudder, groaned his climax into a kiss.
They lay together, panting, hearts racing. She stroked a finger up and down his spine.
His arms wrapped hard around her, and he mumbled into her ear. “Hold on, love.”
“Excuse m—Ack!”
He flipped them so he lay on his back and she lay atop him. “I guess we have very little time before someone comes looking for us, but I won’t let you go just yet. Lay here a moment with me?”
She had no other answer but to lay her head on his chest and listen to his beating heart.
His hand soothed up and down her naked arm and his breathing slowed. “I’d like to ask you to marry me now.”
Her heart soared, then drooped. Of course. He’d feel obligated. She shook her head against his chest. No. He wanted to marry her. But what should she say? How would she answer?
He ran his thumb down her jaw from ear to chin tip. “But I won’t.”
Allison shot upward, glaring. It was one thing to not know how to answer a marriage proposal. It was quite another to have said proposal snatched out from under you. “What? Why not?”
He pulled her back down with a grin. “First, the last time my proposal failed utterly.”
“You didn’t really propose then.”
“Details. Second …” His pause felt like an ocean tumbling between them. “You deserve more than a hasty proposal in the aftermath of furtive lovemaking.”
“I don’t know about that.”
His laugh rumbled against the ear she pressed against his chest. The hard planes of muscle there called to her fingers, and she traced the contours under his shirt, trying to gather her thoughts, a deuced difficult job. His body scattered them before she had a coherent sentence formed. She should have guessed he’d prove an acrobatic lover. Wait. “Carson, your arm—is it all right?”
No answer.
“Carson?” She looked up at him. “Asleep?” she murmured. “The great lummox. The great, beautiful lummox.” She sighed, stood, pulled the bodice of her gown back up, and tamed her hair into a mostly respectable chignon.
Carson slept on, snoring even. “Hmph. Of course, you snore.” She imagined, briefly, lying abed with him each morning, listening to him snore, teasing him about it over breakfast until he silenced her with a kiss. In private, they’d be in love. They’d laugh, play, explore the world and all its pleasures.
But in public. In public, they would be cold, distant, proper.
Allison squeezed her eyes shut to keep from crying. She’d mess up inevitably. She’d upset Lady Hemsworth, then Carson would grow disillusioned with Allison. Soon, he’d regret marrying her.
And yet, she’d learned the answer to Ada’s question about needing. She stood not three feet from Carson, her skin still hot from his touch, the evidence of thei
r lovemaking still clinging to her, and yet she needed more—more kisses, more lovemaking, more Carson.
Oh, bollocks, she loved the man. She couldn’t deny it.
The realization reeled through her, and panic skittered across her skin. Allison ran out of the room, out of the house, and into the carriage. In the enclosed darkness, she picked through her fragmented thoughts, putting them into order. She had more fun with Carson in secret than she’d ever had in her life. He led a double life because he loved his mother who was apparently not the worst person in the world, just maybe a very hurt person. She’d just ruined herself with him, but she didn’t feel ruined.
She felt transformed. She saw life clearly for the first time. Maybe the love of a good man was more important than burning all the rule books. Everyone had secrets, after all. Carson’s secrets were no worse than others. In fact, they were motivated by a good heart.
His heart had beat beneath her cheek. His warm skin had stretched taut across the hard muscles of his chest, rippling beneath her curious fingertips. She could have slept there with him forever. She’d just had as much of a man as you could have, and she needed more. She didn’t want one night, one encounter, a series of hasty touches. She wanted forever. She wanted his heart, beating next to hers, more than she wanted anything else.
She bolted toward the carriage door but stopped and settled back down. She looked a mess. She felt a mess. If she and Carson were going to live a secret life of scandal behind a respectable façade, no one could see her like this—hair mussed, dress torn, every inch of visible skin flushed from Carson’s stubble.
No, she’d wait. There were only two days until the next Moral luncheon. Carson would be there with his mother, as always, and Allison would let him know, in the most proper way possible, she loved him enough to keep his secrets.
Chapter 9
The carriage rumbled over the cobbled street, and Carson’s mother’s voice rumbled with disapproval. “When did you last shave?” She eyed the facial growth suspiciously.
Carson stroked the thin layer of growth over his jaw. “Not for a few days. I like it. I’m thinking of growing a beard.”