Vanquished (26 page)

Lady Katherine looked between them. "Supper, you say. Thank God, I'm famished." Turning to Callie, she smiled. "Miss Rivers, how glad I am we met at last. I do hope we shall see each other before long. Who knows, but one of these days I might even attend one of your rallies."

"I would like that very much."

Lady Katherine swept off in the direction of the supper room. Turning to Callie, Hadrian remarked, "You and Lady Kat look to be fast friends."

She nodded. "She's a bright, spirited woman with some refreshingly modern ideas. It's a bit premature to say, but I have a feeling we may become friends at some point. At least I hope so."

Gazing at her face, which had dimmed considerably from the short while ago when she'd left him on the dance floor, he said, "Something did happen, didn't it?"

When she didn't deny it, Hadrian lost no time in steering them inside a small sitting room adjoining the cloakroom. Closing the door behind them, he walked over to her and said, "Tell me. I want to know." If some man had dealt her an affront or worse yet, touched her, he wouldn't rest until he had the cad's name.

She shrugged those lovely shoulders of hers, bare save for the thin sequined straps. "It's nothing really. Some silliness I took too much to heart. There were some women who said some unkind things, deliberately so."

"What sorts of things?"

She waved a hand in the air as if it were all of no consequence though her eyes told him otherwise. "Oh you know, personal comments on my gown, my age and er . . . size." The latter admission had her hedging her gaze away.

"Callie, look at me." Propping her chin on the edge of his hand, he lifted her face up to the light.

Feeling foolish, she tried looking away, but with her heeled slippers they were of a height and when Hadrian moved closer still there was nowhere to look but in his eyes. Giving in, she quickly told him what had transpired with Isabel Duncan and company.

"So, you see, it actually turned out to be a good thing. It forced me to confront some old demons I've never really had the chance to release, and now that I have I'm all right, really."

"Isabel Duncan is a silly goose, a little idiot without a brain in her empty head," he said, the ferocity in his voice surprising him. "She only said those things because she was jealous." He paused, gaze sweeping over her face, throat, the satiny flesh of her shoulders and high-sloped breasts. "And I can't blame her. You're stunning. When I led you out onto the dance floor, I was the envy of every man in that room. I could feel their eyes stabbing into me like sabers."

"You're being very good to me, very kind."

He shook his head, looking sad suddenly. "Don't you know by now, Callie, that I am neither particularly good nor kind? But despite my more obvious defects, I am still a man with two working eyes, a photographer's eyes. When I look at you as I'm doing now and tell you how utterly beautiful you are, you ought to believe me."

"If anyone is the object of envy and admiration, it is you, sir. Black suits you. You . . . you look very fine in that tailcoat." She touched his lapel, an unaccustomed boldness.

He grinned. "I am glad you approve of something about me."

He didn't kiss her, not at first. He reached down and with one long finger traced the outline where the satin piping of her bodice met the heat of her skin. A single finger, just a whisper of a touch, but it was all it took to make her wet. Beneath the thin drape of her gown, the slit of her silk drawers felt warm and sticky as syrup.

Callie looked down at Hadrian's hand and this time she let her gaze linger, willing him to read her thoughts. She wanted that finger inside her, she wanted Hadrian inside her, and even as she tried to blame her wantonness on the champagne she'd drunk, she knew it would be a lie. It was him. All he need do was press her back against the wall and slide one of his clever hands beneath her skirt and she would let him. Let him take her; have her, in any way, in
every
way he would. She tilted her face up to his, an open invitation.

"Do you want me to kiss you?" His hair was a well of banked moonlight, his mouth a curved smile all but brushing hers.

"Yes." Oh yes, she wanted him to kiss her. But she wanted, needed, so very much more.

A moan, hers, cut through the muted sounds of the revelry taking place just a few feet away behind the closed doors to their back. She took hold of his hand, pressing it to the juncture of her thighs, pelvis jutted upward to meet his touch. "I want--"

"Hush, love, I know what you want, what you need. What we all need."

His other hand found her breast, thumb flicking over the satin-sheathed tip, the hardened nipple stabbing into the stays she wished desperately to be rid of.
So this is what it means to be vanquished,
she thought, and touched her mouth to his.

Against his lips, she said, "Take me home, Hadrian. Now. Please."

All his regret poured out in one rueful sigh. He drew back to look at her. "In that case, shall I find your aunt and call for her carriage?"

Callie hesitated.
Take a chance. Be brave.

Moistening lips gone suddenly dry, she searched for the courage to say, "Not to my aunt's, not yet anyway. Take me back to your flat. Take me home with you."

"Now, the fact is that seduction is, and ought to be, mutual. No love is without seduction in its highest sense."

--V
ICTORIA
W
OODHULL AND
T
ENNESSEE
C
LAFLIN,
Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly

B
y unspoken accord, they didn't talk during the hansom ride from the opera house to Hadrian's. They sat facing each other on the cracked leather seats, the only physical contact the occasional brushing of knees when the coach hit a rough patch of road. But not speaking, not touching, only served to build the anticipation. By the time they halted at his flat, Callie felt as fragile as an egg left too long to boil and just as likely to crack.

The hansom halted, the driver calling out their fare. Reaching into his pocket, Hadrian looked across the darkened carriage to her. In the semidarkness, their eyes met. "You're sure?"

She managed a steady if slightly breathless reply. "Yes, I'm sure."

They stepped down into the street swirling with clouds of yellowish gray vapor, a proper London fog. Crossing to Hadrian's shop, the mist weighing the folds of her caped cloak, Callie felt equal parts terrified and elated. She was about to enter a man's lodgings. Alone. Unchaperoned. After midnight. Although she'd been in his upstairs flat on several occasions now, this time it was with the full intention of going to bed with him. A man who was not her husband, not even her fiance or steady beau. She was spending the night with Hadrian St. Claire of the sexy grin and laughing eyes and shadowed past. For one glorious night he would be all hers. The thought sent a thrill shooting through her.

But as they climbed the creaking stairs of his walk-up, flinty logic crept in. To spread your legs for a man and take him inside you was the ultimate submission, the ultimate gamble. And her intended lover wasn't any man but Hadrian. He was so attractive, so sophisticated, and so altogether comfortable with what men and women did together she couldn't help feeling gauche in comparison. The glimpses she'd had of his clothed erection suggested he was well endowed, possibly enormous. What if she was unable to take all of him? What if he hurt her? Worse yet, what if she disappointed him? That prospect terrified her most of all.

The door opened on a creak. "After you," he said, moving back for her to enter.

Callie stepped inside as she'd done on at least a half-dozen separate occasions, only this time was different. This time she was entering for the express purpose of lying with him. The act would be premeditated and preplanned, and no matter what happened afterward, she couldn't ever fall back on saying she'd been tricked or seduced.

She started on the hooks of her velvet evening cape, fingers clumsy with eagerness and nerves. Behind her Hadrian drew the door closed.

"Here, allow me." His hands, warm despite the chilly carriage ride they'd shared, found the tops of her shoulders.

"Thank you." She stood still and let him slip the cape off, his hands lingering for a whisper of a moment before he turned away to hang the garment on a peg.

"Make yourself comfortable." He draped his tailcoat over the back of a chair and then went to turn up the lamps.

A warm smoky glow suffused the room. Rubbing her bare arms, she drifted over to the table. Fitting one hand to the edge, she looked across to where Hadrian bent to the grate, busy rekindling the banked fire. She caught herself ogling his back, the way his buttocks and thighs molded to the soft wool of his tailored trousers. Despite the chill in the room, she felt a sliver of sweat slip down between her shoulder blades and silently prayed to whatever saint whose charge it was to watch over soon-to-be-fallen women that it wouldn't leave a telltale stain on her gown. For one night in her life she wanted to appear calm and collected, elegant and poised. She wanted to feel carefree and sexy and yes, just a little happy too.

Needing to breach the edgy silence, she called across the room, "You should know I've never propositioned a man before tonight."

"I didn't think you had but thank you for saying so," he answered over his shoulder, and she was warmed by the smile in his voice. "Not that you wouldn't have been met with a great number of acceptances." He straightened and turned to cross the room toward her, gaze holding hers. "You're so beautiful," he said and the warmth in his voice and in his eyes left no doubt he meant it. "Seeing you standing there in profile and dressed as you are, I can't help thinking Sargent's Madame X pales in comparison." He slid his gaze slid down the length of her, taking thorough measure of the heart-shaped bodice molding her breasts, the satin skirt cinched at her waist, the "V"-shaped fold of skirt draped snugly over her pubis.

Callie felt the brush of his eyes like a caress. She should have felt ashamed. She should have felt shy. But instead what she felt was a bold, pagan excitement coursing through her. "You make me feel beautiful."

Coming to stand before her, he slid one of the jeweled straps down off her shoulder, fingers trailing the edge of her forearm and sending fireworks shooting down her spine. "And you have the softest skin. Like rose petals," he added and then smiled at what an idiot he'd become.

Who would have thought that Harry Stone, whoreson and erstwhile thief, would be mooning over a woman's skin like some love smitten swain ramping up for his very first fuck? Incredible. Ludicrous.

Wonderful . . . wonderful beyond words.

Yet whatever shred of honor he still possessed prompted him to step back and say, "We don't have to do this, you know. There's still time to walk away. I'll never say a word to anyone, I promise."

Her eyes lifted to his. "I don't want to walk away. I want this. I want you."

He settled his gaze on her face. "You need to know I'm not a marrying man."

Callie's eyes flashed fire, a reminder of their first photography session when she'd sparred with him like a knight of yore. "What makes you think I'm a marrying woman? Men gratify their physical desires outside of marriage all the time and no one faults them for it or expects them to forfeit their independence. Why should it be different for a woman?"

A woman's heart can be a very fragile thing . . .
Callie's aunt's words had haunted him ever since her visit to his shop. Hearing them now in the echo inside his head, he said, "Because it is. If we go to bed, it won't be long before you'll want more from me, the promise of something permanent. And I'm telling you now, Callie, I'm not capable of giving you or any other woman more than this."

She tilted her head and regarded him. "Have you ever tried?"

He lifted her hand and carried it to his mouth, pressing a kiss into her palm. "You've a whole wide world out there just waiting for you to save it. The salvation of one scapegrace would be a waste of your time and considerable talents."

"Shouldn't I be the one to decide that?"

He shook his head, a hank of hair falling over his one eye, making him look younger, boyish even. "You don't need me, Callie. I'm no good to you. If you're even half as intelligent as I know you to be, you'll go now and never come back."

Reaching up, she combed back the golden strands with her fingers. "I want to make love with you, Hadrian. I think I've wanted to almost from the moment I set eyes on you in Parliament Square. I'm not asking you to promise tomorrow, only give me tonight."

He kissed the curve of her neck. "In that case, no apologies, no regrets." His life's guiding mantra, only now he was giving it to her.

He'd tried to send her away, truly he had. He wanted her. He was shaking with the need to be inside her, to be one with her, to be a part of her life if only for this one night.

Stepping back from her, he held her gaze and said, "Your hair, take it down for me."

She reached up her arms--such lovely long limbs she had. Her hands went to her hair, fingers pulling at the pins, and he saw she was shaking.
Oh Callie
. . .