"But I risk it all to be in your presence, dear, magnificent Charlotte."
Again, a tingle of awareness restarted its sweep.
He smiled. "Quite the array of clodpots vying for your favors, aren"t there? I was surprised you managed to extricate yourself from their grasp."
There was a hint of something in his words. Some emotion quickly covered.
"I am hardly as sought after as you suggest." Most men were put off by her coldness-and unavailability-here in her third season. "And you could hardly see from here."
"No?" His smile curled farther, darkening. "Mmm . . . that decrepit man asking if you liked the expensive lilies he sent, when everyone knows you are partial to flowers with Sainfoin-like spikes."
She stared at him. "What-what on earth . . . how do you know what Lord Tewksbury said? And what I like?"
She would have known if he had been in the room. Behind her. Breathing against her neck. He had to be bluffing. No one was that stealthy. Especially not someone as remarkable as the man in front of her.
The man in front of her who was currently wrapped in shadows, unnoticed until he chose to reveal himself. A man who could creep up and stick a knife in one"s gut and be on his way before the victim hit the floor.
Hot eyes watching . . .
The edges of his eyes crinkled in darkly amused knowledge.
Her heart picked up speed.
"You are guessing."
"Am I? Or I could be using knowledge gained from listening to your father"s prattle."
She pressed her lips together. "Hardly something to admit to me."
"You don"t admire my honesty?" His eyes were lazy.
"I question your purpose."
"I"m simply on a mission of collection." He hummed. "Is there anything I should be collecting from you, dear Charlotte?"
She felt her skin heat at the mention, at the look in his eyes. Inexplicable giddiness that there was collection to be had . . . uncertainty that this was a simple transaction for him.
What was wrong with her?
"I"m not sure there is. We didn"t properly finish the game. You fell asleep. " There. She had firmly impugned his manhood. And in the cold light of a new day, it seemed slightly depressing that a man hadn"t even been able to stay awake to ravish her. Maybe she really was just that boring.
He chuckled, a deep rumbling sound. Water over rocks. "With another woman, I would have taken the pleasure offered, then turned her away for a full measure of sleep. We are not finished, Charlotte, you are correct."
G.o.d, she couldn"t stop the lift, the euphoria. Wrong, so wrong. "And what is it that you propose? Did you bring your chessboard? Shall we play in the garden? Use one of the rooms inside?"
He smiled lazily. "You know well that we finished that particular game. I am quite sure that your quick mind played out the game to its conclusion. Five moves more. You are perfectly aware of who the winner was and what he won. But would you rather I take you into one of the closed rooms within to . . . discuss . . . it?"
"What? No!" Her heart was nearly beating through her chest. Antic.i.p.ation. Anxiety.
"At your next stop then? Or one thereafter?" He moved closer with each word. "Perhaps I should lie in wait. Make you antic.i.p.ate my presence around each shadowed corner, ready to twirl you into the darkness.
"And I will, Charlotte. You can think of our night together as a prelude. You escaped with your virtue intact. And you could remain that way." Eyes languid with promise pinned hers, and she could hear the thumping beat of her own heart. "But you don"t want to remain that way, do you, Charlotte?"
His lips brushed her cheek, then the lobe of her ear, as he whispered the last. She leaned into him, terribly aware of the leap of her pulse beneath his fingers. Of the way his mere presence seemed to tilt her toward him, her head automatically giving him better access to her neck. Waiting for a vampiric kiss.
Her eyes closed, the steady beat becoming louder. Like footsteps in the gra.s.s, the beat of her heart.
"I should be done with the game and depart with you now." Her heart raced at the words, at the tickling of lips against her skin. "Alas. I"m not sure you"d forgive me. And I plan to make the taste of your skin a serial pleasure. One that neither one night or two can satisfy." His lips brushed her neck, the side of her throat. "Soon."
A whisper of fingers ghosted the flesh of her wrist before lifting.
"Come to cower in the shadows," a strident voice challenged. "Or to meet with a lover?"
Charlotte"s eyes popped open. And she frantically looked at the empty s.p.a.ce before her, her body leaning across the bench and almost touching the foliage. She nearly gave in to a hysterical little laugh before composing herself and turning to the voice.
"Simply smelling the jasmine," she said. "Is that what you came to do as well?"
Bethany Case"s eyes darted about the s.p.a.ce, actively seeking another body. But Charlotte had chosen the spot for the lack of real privacy it afforded. Which had made Roman"s successful concealment all the more baffling.
And her subsequent actions all the more alarming.
She half expected him to be spotted at any moment. A cry erupting about an intruder. About her indiscretion. And yet the garden seemed void of anything but invited guests.
She smartly chose not to look too closely, for inspection would prompt her nemesis to do likewise.
"I smell something foul."
"Yes, now that you are here, I do as well." Charlotte rose, brus.h.i.+ng her skirt.
Bethany"s fingers wrapped around her arm, clawing satin. "Soon, Chatsworth. Soon you will be naught but a distant, fond memory."
"Oh?" She peeled the claws from her arm. "Are you leaving dear England?"
An ugly laugh issued. "You have been very fortunate so far, but no one is that perfect. You will slip. And I will be there to watch you fall."
"I"m sure that you will," Charlotte said simply, and stepped to the side. "You"ve always been a c.o.c.kroach."
She heard the murderous growl, but continued walking calmly along the path.
"Soon, Chatsworth," the ugly voice called. "And the damage will be irreversible."
Charlotte tried to shake off the portent. The echo of Roman"s promise, dangerous in a different way. Bethany"s tune had changed little. Why should she listen to her now?
Because you are skating the edge of ruin. Half-willing to shove yourself into the mill.
The dance floor was full, and she was happy to walk around it, not meeting anyone"s eyes. Not wanting to be trapped into a dance.
For there was no wild, drugging happiness to be found for her here on the floor. Merely political moves like the s.h.i.+fting of the chess pieces over a cold board. It seemed a lifetime ago that she had thought otherwise in this venue, but she remembered it in a secret part of her soul, a part that was yearning to bloom once more. That chaotic pa.s.sion of youth.
The tendril of it peeking up and threatening to overtake her with its insanity.
She located the Downings. Leaning into each other. Blowing toward each other like trees in favorable winds. Charlotte"s smile stayed firm, and she kept her eyes on them instead of glancing back to the garden.
"Did anything of note take place before we arrived?" Miranda asked brightly.
Charlotte"s gaze strayed unwillingly, unwisely, watching the lights from the room bounce off the gla.s.s of the open doors. "No, nothing of importance."
Bethany Case entered from the garden patio, her sickly sweet smile turned Charlotte"s way. Challenging. Promising that no good would come to her enemy.
And for the love of everything proper, a man who ruled part of the underworld had just been there, lounging in the fronds, touching her, drawing her steadily toward him, wanting. Collecting. Which meant he could show up anywhere, at any time. Soon. Could come to the next event and throw her over his shoulder and make off with her into the night.
"Well, perhaps we will have more luck at our next destination. You are going to the Slatterlys"?"
"Yes." There was a low wall at the Slatterlys". She bet Roman knew exactly how to hold her properly in order to scale it together.
"I must tell you all about-"
But Charlotte couldn"t concentrate on her friend"s words.
He could sate the edges of the bet in whatever form he found her. On a bench, on the gra.s.s, on the dance floor-dress skirts whirling above them as she arched beneath him. Her face wild and pa.s.sionate, and nothing like what she saw in the cold reflection of her mirror.
"And then-"
A wild half-formed emotion rose within Charlotte, pus.h.i.+ng at tight binds, trying to shred consequences. And she had to employ every tactic she possessed to cage and bind the feeling. To speak to and answer Miranda and Downing with calm precision. To dance with Trant. To behave as she ought to for the rest of the night.
But when she entered their rented carriage, two events later, at the end of the night"s festivities, it was to find a single Sainfoin conicle-red-veined and unusual-for it was far too early for said flowers to bloom-resting on the seat, a white p.a.w.n and note attached to the stem by a golden string. One word was scrawled upon the paper.
Soon.
Chapter 10.
R oman tapped the note in his hand. Where could he leave this one? Heaven forbid he grow stale and repeat himself. Which eliminated a garden bench, her reticule, her carriage, a runner at the park, and down her decolletage-she"d squawked charmingly when he had pulled her into a back room at a charity event last eve and deposited that one.
By far it had been his favorite drop.
He wondered if he slid the folded paper into her stocking . . . would it count as duplication? It was technically up her dress, after all.
He twirled the paper fold around his fingers, playing with it. The game was heating up nicely.
On her pillow.
It was past time for that really. He"d get One-eye to identify her room. He couldn"t trust himself to do it, too liable to do something prematurely.
Removing himself from temptation"s grasp was the best way to control his impulsive nature.
Removing himself . . .
Like not playing cards with Bennett Chatsworth and Trant.
Like not recklessly cheating and putting their lives and livelihood at risk.
Like not thumbing his nose and taking the night with her anyway. A night that hadn"t been full of physical pleasure but had been awash in its own pleasure all the same. The pleasure of antic.i.p.ation. The spark that maybe . . . maybe . . .
The spark that had already fanned into a flame.
Removing himself . . . A tight smile pulled his lips.
He had learned to listen to his gut. Yet even so, even to him, his list of temptation"s grasp and how he"d flung himself into it lately was long. And frequent.
And centered solely around one person. One woman.
He tapped the heavy stock against the desk he was reluctantly sitting behind. He hated desks, but they served a purpose. Proper and stiff. Expected.
He"d wait on the pillow.
A knock sounded on the door, and he called out for the person to enter.
Two boys entered the room. The first was scrawny and looked as if one stiff breeze would fell him. But his eyes were quick-as if he"d catch the signs of such a breeze before the current reached him. The other boy was larger, stockier in frame, but without the meat to be a true threat-yet. There was a hunched-in quality to his big shoulders and movements. A future glimpse of a hulking presence.
A quick glance at the two would have most people immediately claiming the first one as a small, fast messenger, and the other as brute force in the making. Only a deeper look would say otherwise.
The smaller one stared at him, lips pressed tightly together, a jagged scar crossing the length of his forehead. Roman would bet the age of the scar and the boy"s initiation to the streets coincided. Which one preceded the other would be the question.
The boy gripped his cap in his hands, twisting the cheap felt. A clear show of emotion in someone who didn"t have enough money to purchase a new one.
"There is no need to be nervous," Roman said, keeping his voice even.
"Am not nervous," came the mutinous reply. But small hands twisted again.
A little Andreas. A little One-eye. All ruffled pride.
"No?" Roman let his eyes pointedly stray to the cap.
Behind hollowed eyes, the boy looked irate. He squared up his shoulders, jutted out his chin, forced the cap to his side.
The other boy hunched, lips pressing, eyes wary. Waiting in reaction. Antic.i.p.ating the kick. Knowing that one always came even if he didn"t deserve it.
A smaller Milton. A smaller Lefty. All extinguished hope.
Roman focused on the hunched, hulking boy for a moment, keeping his voice even and somewhat disinterested as he watched the exact way he twitched. "We have many posts open. On the floors, in the streets, as messengers, in the cla.s.sroom, in the kitchens, in the gardens-"
He smoothly followed the direction of the telltale sign of interest at the second to last. "We have posts for helping with the groceries, prepping supplies, learning how to cook-"