Since the Surrender (12 page)

She did, however, love beautiful gowns. And here they abounded. Her eyes greedily took in virginal whites and subtle jewel tones, intricate beading and embroidery, somberly dressed matrons and widows. She assessed jewels and coiffures. She had no doubts about her own simply pinned-up hair, which was quite good, shiny and thick and enviable, and she saw no need to feel modest about it. And as her senses began to accommodate the spectacle, her heart remembered how it felt and she began to wish she could dance. The way she hadn’t since Belgium. Since her innocence, such as it was, had been lost to war and the d’Alignys and to Chase.

Since she hadn’t precisely been invited, however, it was likely her hostess would quickly note her, should she reel her merry way across the ballroom.

But surely no one would mind if she at least tapped her foot? She tucked herself between a large laughing group and a corner occupied by a regal pillar. Her slipper patted the floor, her shoulders began to sway, her fan waved beneath her chin, and then she saw Kinkade.

She sucked in a gasp and pressed herself against the wall. He wended through the crowd with a nod here, a greeting there. She knew why she’d spotted him: he seemed scarcely to have aged at all since she’d last seen him, where Chase had hardened. Though the omnipotent chandelier might simply be casting Though the omnipotent chandelier might simply be casting everyone in flattering light. He was still lean and angularly handsome. His face turned toward her and his eyes flashed silvery for an instant, and for a heartbeat she thought he’d seen her. But no: his expression didn’t change. He heartily greeted another man but kept moving. He seemed to have a specific destination and was heading determinedly toward it alone.

He would disappear unless she followed him, and she might not see him again.

She watched the back of Kinkade until he turned up a staircase. Deeper into the family quarters, no doubt.

She hesitated. The stairs weren’t precisely guarded by Scylla and Charybdis, she told herself. She could lie easily enough if she were caught.

And so she waited, tapping out a few bars of the music with her slipper.

And then up the stairs she went, too.

Chase gamely plunged into the ball crowds scaling the front stairs of the Callender house in pairs and groups and managed to insinuate himself through it, sparing smiles for acquaintances who shouted greetings he couldn’t hear over the noise, and offering up lingering smiles for the ladies, because why shouldn’t he, and it was a pleasure to freeze a few in their tracks and know that their eyes remained glued to his back as he passed.

“Captain Eversea. Very good to see you in London, sir.” The Callender footman had an impressive memory. But then, so did Chase.

“Thank you, Morton. I’m happy to be here.”

But he was less and less certain this was true.

A cascade of screechy feminine laughter cut through the roar of voices. Someone was clearly already drunk and in decidedly high spirits, and more than one woman would lose consciousness and need to be hauled out to the garden for a wrist patting tonight or the Callenders would consider the evening a failure. His thoughts must have shown on his face, because he detected what appeared to be a flicker of sympathy in the footman’s eyes.

“If you’d like to join Lord Callender and Mr. Kinkade, sir, and a few other gentlemen, they’ve gone up to the library. I’ve had instructions to send you there—and I should tell you I was requested to repeat this verbatim, sir—‘Should you deign to show your misbegotten visage at all this evening.’”

Dancing was something he did only awkwardly these days if he did it at all, and he took no real pleasure in it, so heading straight for the cigars and conversation riddled with horses, women, carriages, guns, politics, money, war, epithets, and the like, sounded like a perfectly agreeable way to at least begin the evening. He chose the second set of stairs, the one leading up, knowing he would likely find the library on the second floor. By the first landing it was mercifully, significantly quieter; by the third landing the hum of voices and music were made ghostly by distance.

He made a right turn: he’d heard masculine voices and a scattering of laughter of the unfettered, ribald quality one hears near battleground campfires, and toward it he went.

battleground campfires, and toward it he went.

The library floor was thick with oxblood-and-cream-colored carpets imported from Persia, and it silenced his footfall. He’d taken two of those plush, silent steps when he stopped abruptly. Interesting.

He thought he detected the scent of…roses.

He frowned. It was faint. But it was enough to send a sizzle of awareness and suspicion down his spine.

But doubtless hothouse roses were crammed into a vase here in this library.

“…and I said, gaslight is the way of the future, old man.” Sounded like Ireton.

Chase saw immediately this was a robust library, the work of a serious collector. Tall, elegant shelves lined not only the walls but ran at angles to each other, too, with narrow passages left between, so that he needed to weave among them to get closer to the fire and to his friends, whom he could hear but not see yet. Each shelf was stuffed full of books that looked as if they might even have been read at one time or another. Gold glinted dully from lettered spines as his boots and walking stick sank into the carpets. He stopped abruptly. The scent of roses was suddenly stronger. And potently familiar.

He knew. He knew before he saw her.

And at first he simply stared and thought: Impressive. Because apart from the dull sheen of her dress, nothing sparkled about her

—no jewelry, no combs, no coronets—but the lyrical shape of her

—no jewelry, no combs, no coronets—but the lyrical shape of her body elevated to stunning the simplicity of her gown. The shade of her dress blended her with the shadows on the rugs and shelves. She could easily have passed for a ghost. But really, he—or anyone, for that matter—might just as easily have missed the woman lurking among the rows of shelves.

Apart from the scent of roses.

Despite himself, his body surged in response. She was slightly bent, arse outthrust, bosom spilling forward, peering intently through a parting she’d made between two large books. Oh, God. Ironically, the line of her was achingly beautiful. Chase imagined drawing a leisurely hand from the nape of her neck, down her lean spine, over the nip of her waist and sweet curve of her arse, savoring the perfect symmetry of her. The muscles of his stomach tightened. But Rosalind March was spying.

What the bloody hell should he do?

He was neatly cleaved between yet again protecting her—from being caught, and hearing what he knew she was likely to hear

—and from protecting the men from being spied upon. He knew what sorts of things would be talked about among old soldiers. Very little of it would be suitable for a woman’s ears. He could pick all the voices out now. Kinkade, Ireton, Lawton, Kirkham, Callender. Rising, blending, tumbling over one another. Much laughing. Profanity. He heard the clink of crystal and the glug of brandy, the snick snick of cigars being clipped, and seconds later the first tantalizing puff of smoke as good cigars were sucked into life.

If he didn’t join them in a moment, he would officially be spying, too. Bloody hell. Stopping Rosalind was the best way to protect everyone.

The thick carpet took the weight of his feet and his walking stick. The leather of his shoes obliged him by not creaking. The men were too temporarily deafened by spirits and laughter and the loud ballroom orchestra to hear him, and besides, why should they be straining their ears for people creeping up behind them?

Not even Mrs. March heard him. So intent was she on peering at the men.

In a few more steps he was so close to her he could smell her: not just roses, but something soft and warm. Soap, the herbs she’d stored her dress in, something uniquely her. He could see one tiny white hair sparkling amidst the shining dark of her coiffure. It caught his breath. She was not yet thirty years old, but it wasn’t as though the war and her flighty sisters wouldn’t have left its mark upon her. All the little things about Rosalind had always spoken strongest to him. He could not have said for certain why. They seemed to tell the story of her truthfully.

He was scarcely an inch away from touching her now, and he stopped and waited for her to sense the heat of his body. In seconds she stood bolt upright.

Which slid the silk length of her body up a tantalizing length from his hard torso. Not at all unpleasant, regardless of their circumstances. Her gloved hand went up to her mouth to cover her choked gasp. She angled her chin in an attempt to peer over her shoulder, but he was so close he’d made it impossible.

Her throat moved in a swallow. Her eyes were wide with fear; her nostrils flared.

Neither of them could speak—they could scarcely breathe, for that matter—without risking discovery.

“…she said to me, I’ll ride you into tomorrow, and by God if she didn’t!”

“Which one was this? Mildred?” This sounded like Callender.

“No, no, the little one! Cassandra! On the pirate stage.”

On the what? No woman should be listening to this. But Chase’s torso was warming deliciously from the beautiful warm woman pressed against it, which was distracting him from the conversation.

“…took me upstairs after that, she did.”

No man should have to worry that a woman was listening to this.

“…charge a subscription. Exorbitant. Exclusive. Very clever, I’ve decided. Now I’ve begun to think I’ll sell shares in the…” This was Kinkade.

The line of fine, fine hair trailing fernlike up Rosalind’s white nape mesmerized him. Her pulse thumped visibly in her throat. It was all he could do not to lean forward and lick it.

“…where the hell are you going to get the capital, Kinkade? You’re up to your ears in debt, aren’t you?”

Her arse was now brushing against the official beginnings of what promised to be an impressive erection.

Sweet Mother of God.

“…she made the most brilliant mermaid…”

What on earth? Mermaid?

The conversation made no sense but sounded fascinating, and combined with the sensual woman in front of him, who had just purposely—he was certain of it—slid her arse ever so slightly across his now quite hard cock, he felt enmeshed in a druglike dream.

Rosalind’s head angled again; she wanted to see him. He could see that her lips were parted a little; her breath was shallow now. Her eyelids lowered to slits; her dark lashes quivered against her cheekbones. Against him, her ribs moved.

He swallowed, too. He had ducked his head so his own harsh breaths would be muffled by her shining hair. Which is when he saw that the fine, clinging fabric of her dress explicitly revealed the planes of her arse: round and smooth and taut as a peach. Of a certainty she wasn’t wearing anything beneath that dress apart from stockings.

“…Ireton had to run for it! He was caught! Thought he ’twas in Covent Garden!”

A roar of laugher from the men.

Because it seemed, in the moment, a sensible and entirely unavoidable thing to do, slide a feathery finger along the crease of her buttocks as revealed by that dress.

her buttocks as revealed by that dress.

Rosalind froze in what he assumed was shock.

Too bad, Rosalind, he thought. He did it again: the same feathery touch, originating at that sweet, wickedly erotic spot at the base of her spine, following the sweet crease of her buttocks. And then again. Coaxing. Teasing.

Until her arse made a wee, deliberate circle against his erection. Oh, God. He pushed himself hard against her, which might have been a mistake, but he hardly had a say in the matter: it was all his body’s doing.

What had he started?

She’d started it by being here at all, was his unworthy conclusion. His palms slid down to cup then saucily squeeze her arse, and her head tipped back into his chest, affording him a splendid view of her breasts, rising and falling, rising and falling. He relinquished her arse and gently wrapped his fingers around her forearms to lift them. Her arms went unresisting. And then he deliberately placed her own hands over her breasts. Then dragged them lightly down over her peaked nipples in a circle. Just a suggestion, Rosalind. An incredibly wicked suggestion. A way to participate in your own pleasure.

For he was a planner, and he had plans for his hands, and for her pleasure.

“…found ’im at Tatersall’s for my wife.”

Chase began to furl up the front of her dress. Slowly, slowly, lest it rustle unduly; mercifully it glided easily up over her silk stockings and her smooth skin. He held it bunched in one hand. And then he slid his palm over the silken and—oh, God, lovely wet curls between her legs.

She was rigid in shock. But her whole body would be pliant in seconds. He knew what he was about.

His finger slowly, lightly, traced the seam between the soft folds. Snagging in those fine silken curls. Leisurely, leisurely, twining in them, as he circled against her arse.

She was still rigid. But her breathing had gone staccato.

“…that horse couldn’t run to save its life!” someone objected. The voices of Chase’s friends came to them from another world now. He traced that sweet damp seam as though he were drawing her into being. Leisurely, as though they were in no danger at all of being caught. Torturously leisurely. Again.

And then again.

Her skin pulsed to his touch.

Lightly again. And this was when her legs slipped wider, and his finger slid through velvety wetness.

He nearly swayed from it.

His breath now gusted against her throat, and she tugged her own bodice down roughly, giving him a view of the pale rose bead-hard nipples she’d taken between her own fingers.

nipples she’d taken between her own fingers.

He was fairly certain he’d never been this aroused in his entire life.

“…best idea you ever had, Kinkade.”

The musk of desire surrounded them now. Her knees began to buckle.

He wrapped her tightly with one arm to hold her upright, and his body took her weight, and he slipped a finger deep into her.