Vixen in Velvet (19 page)

“Hat,” he said. “Only looking for my hat. Now I recall. Downstairs. Left it on the table near the door.”

“I’d better let you out,” she said. “If Fenwick was actually sleeping when we arrived, I’d rather not wake him again.”

“Obviously you’re not a lady,” he said. “No lady would trouble herself with a servant’s lack of sleep.”

Stop putting it off
, he told himself.

He walked to the door and opened it. She went past him, ribbons and lace trembling, silk whispering.

He followed her down the stairs, relieved to see she was steadier on her feet now and more like her usual self.

At the door, he found his hat. He said, “I meant this to be a perfect evening. I’m sorry it was the opposite.”

“The first part went well,” she said. She gave a soft laugh. “And the supper, too. Thank you. It was very kind of you.”

She drew near and rose on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek.

He, surprised at her approach, turned his head at the exact instant her mouth was there. His mouth touched hers and the next he knew, he had one hand cupping the back of her head and the other drawing her close, and he was kissing her back with all the ferocity he’d been stifling all this long night.

Chapter Ten

Piety, integrity, fortitude, charity, obedience, consideration, sincerity, prudence, activity, and cheerfulness, with the dispositions which spring from, and the amiable qualities which rise out of them, may, we presume, nearly define those moral properties called for in the daily conduct and habitual deportment of young ladies.

—
The Young Lady’s Book
, 1829

S
he’d acted on impulse, that was all.

There he stood, the hall’s lamplight casting a glow upon his curling dark gold hair. At that moment romantic fantasy simply overwhelmed reality and practicality and logic, and Leonie did what another girl would do, after a man had made her sandwiches and made her talk and laugh and stopped her from sinking into a slough of misery and self-pity. She kissed him.

The trouble was, she wasn’t like other girls. Her impulses came from a deep and narrow place, where she’d stuffed years and years of secrets.

At the first touch of his lips the vault’s trapdoor sprang open, like the lid of Pandora’s box. The secrets of her heart flew out, and swarmed over her sensible brain and swamped it, and she went into Lisburne’s crushing embrace without a second’s hesitation or the smallest qualm.

She was the one with her feet on the ground. She was the logical, organized one, yet she fell headlong and recklessly, the way all her kind did.

She threw her arms round his neck and arched her body to fit against his. She kissed him back with everything she had, and that seemed to be an eternity of pent-up longing.

They had one tender meeting of lips before tenderness gave way to a wilder urge she hadn’t a name for, didn’t understand, and hadn’t the right armor or weapons to fight. Whatever it was, wherever it led, it was irresistible.

She’d been kissed before, and not innocently, either, and she’d liked it. With him she entered another realm. To call what he did to her a kiss was to call the ocean water. She lost herself in it. She sank into the strange joy of it, and the wild sensual pleasure of it: his muscled torso’s warmth, his arms’ possessive pressure, the fine linen and wool softly brushing her face and neck. The erotic tangle of taste and scent and movement engulfed her.

She wanted to stay in this place, this world within his arms, forever.

A warning drummed at the edges of her awareness, but she refused to listen.

He slid his hand down her back over her bottom and pressed her against him. Too much stood in the way. The layers of her dress, its adornments, and all her undergarments were like a featherbed wedged between them. Her life was about clothes, but at this moment she wanted skin to skin.

He broke the kiss, his breath coming fast. “I need to leave,” he said. “Now.”

“Yes,” she said, and told herself to be sensible.

In a corner of her brain, on a peaceful island amid the churning seas of feelings, her intellect went on working. It reminded her of what had happened earlier in the evening and all she stood to lose, and what those who depended on her and on her shop stood to lose. Lisburne’s brilliant plan had got her into trouble, and she had to get herself out, as usual. She hadn’t time for falling in love and breaking her heart.

She stood for a moment, her head bowed, her forehead resting below the folds of his neckcloth, and fought with herself. She needed to find her well-ordered world again, the stable place where she could live in peace. She knew this. She tried to put the knowledge at the front of her mind, but his linen distracted her.

So crisp and so painstakingly arranged and tied when the evening had begun, it now hung limp and creased. The last time she’d seen him rumpled was in Hyde Park. In the rain. When they’d kissed and when, she realized, he’d taught her to want more from him than kisses.

She let her fingers creep up toward the knot. She wanted so much to untie it and touch her fingers to his naked throat.

He covered her hand with his.

“I need to leave,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. She twisted her hand to tangle her fingers with his. Skin to skin. His hands were warm. Their twined hands rested against his heart. She could feel it beating. Or maybe not. Her own was beating so hard, she couldn’t tell.

“I’m going to leave now,” he said, gently disentangling her hand from his. “We’ll talk tomorrow, when we’re . . . calmer.”

She didn’t want to be calm.

“Yes,” she said, and made herself take one step back, away from him, away from the feel of linen and wool and the big, warm body, where she’d felt so safe when she wasn’t safe at all.

He reached for her and pulled her back to him again, and kissed her again, raking his hands through her hair, demolishing her coiffure, scattering pins and flowers and ribbons.

Some sensible part of his brain must have been working, because he let her go at last.

She retreated a pace and told herself this was best. Somebody had to resist temptation, and she no longer had any idea how.

He reached for the door handle.

Then, “My hat,” he said. “Dammit. My hat.”

She wanted to stamp her foot, preferably with the accursed hat under it. She had a rampaging horde of desires and disappointments to beat into submission. She had to shove them back into the narrow little strongbox in her heart. She needed to get away to a quiet place away from him, and stop being a fool.

But no. She had to stay and pretend she was completely calm and sensible and only waiting to lock the door after him.

Meanwhile, there he was, all elegant grace while he peered into the light and shadow of the entryway. There he was, in exactly the place where the lamplight could cast a halo-like glow upon the top of his head, highlighting the dark gold curls. Like the neckcloth, they weren’t in perfect order anymore, but tousled as though he’d risen from his bed moments ago. She remembered the feel of the thick curls when she’d pushed her fingers through them. She could almost feel them now, against her hands.

Botticelli’s painting rose in her mind’s eye, and she saw the goddess of love putting her hands on the god of war, on naked skin. She saw Mars putting his hands on Venus, in places where some women didn’t even touch themselves.

Leonie folded her hands at her waist and waited. She watched his head go still and the curls settle into place when he spotted his hat at last, on the floor where he’d dropped it.

He swept it up and set it on his head and grasped the doorknob and opened the door and walked out.

Not a minute later, before she’d had time to shake off disappointment and mortification and start for the stairs, in he walked again, slamming the door behind him, throwing his hat at the table and sweeping her into his arms, all in one storm of motion.

He kissed her, raking his hands over her, along her arms, her back, and crushing her against him. She dug her fingers into his back and tried to get closer still.

His mouth left hers and he drew back.

She pushed him away and started to turn away, to let him go—to the devil, for all she cared. But he caught her arm, and the next she knew she was pressed against the wall and he was leaning over her and saying, his voice low and harsh, “Dammit, Leonie,” and she said, “I’m not
Leonie
to y—” and his mouth stifled her angry retort.

She was supposed to stop him. She was supposed to injure him if necessary.

She didn’t even pretend to struggle. The best she could do was remain as she was, the palms of her hands pressed against the wall while he dragged her into the dark place again, his mouth and tongue teasing and demanding by turns, until she teetered on the edge of what felt like a turbulent sea whose waves rushed to drag her under.

She was aware of his hands pressing against the wall as well, on either side of her face. His long body hovered mere inches away, boxing her in, and his scent, spicier and darker than before, filled the narrow space. His taste was in her mouth and swirling in her head, mingling with the dizzying man-scent. She couldn’t find her balance, and her legs wanted to give way, and if she didn’t take hold of him, she’d slide down the wall.

He broke the kiss.

She was lifting her hand to strike him, because she was drowning, and he was toying with her, when he touched his lips to her cheek.

She sucked in her breath.

Then he was kissing her, all over her face, tender kisses that made her ache and want to weep.

Lust she could cope with.

Not this sweetness.

She couldn’t move. She stood enchanted, dissolving, while kisses fell like slow summer rain on her face. She remained so, putting up no fight at all, while he trailed kisses down her neck and along her shoulders and while everything melted, and she didn’t know whether she was standing or falling.

She stood, lost, while he took his hands from the wall to cup her face then move downward slowly over her shoulders, over her breasts, while she had to teach herself another way to breathe, above or below or through the great onrush of feelings.

Longing and pleasure tangled together and somewhere among them, below them, and driving them, seethed a craving beyond anything she had words for.

His voice, husky and deep, was at her ear. “Tell me to stop.”

“I won’t,” she said.

“Don’t leave it to me,” he said. Between words he was kissing her neck.

“I will,” she said. If he wanted to stop, let him. He knew what he was doing. She was a novice, and weak in the morals department besides. Let him make up his mind.

“Leonie.”

The sound of her name, the way he said it, tied knots in her heart. It wasn’t fair that he could do this to her. What did he want? Why wouldn’t he take what was so obviously his for the taking?

She reached up and grasped a fistful of neckcloth. “Go,” she said. “Who prevents you? Why do you keep coming back? Do I beg you? Do I hold you here?”

“You don’t make me stop,” he said.

He left it to her—the one who’d fallen in love and whose heart he was going to break, the one who knew nothing of lovemaking after all, only the mechanics—and that knowledge was
useless.

“Very well,” she said. “Stop playing with me.” She let go of his neckcloth, summoned what stray bits of willpower she could find, and pushed him away, as hard as she could. Then she stalked away and started up the stairs, pushing her tumbled hair out of her face.

He was a man. He was supposed to want One Thing.

How difficult was this supposed to be?

Marcelline should have—

“Aren’t you going to bolt the door?” came his voice from behind her.

“When I’m sure you’re gone,” she said.

“It isn’t safe.”

She kept walking.

Not safe
. What was the matter with him?

As she left the landing, she heard the bolt slide home, with force.

Her heart thudded.

She walked faster, up the remaining stairs and into the consulting room. She repositioned a mannequin and straightened the pattern books. It didn’t matter if he came back and left again. She’d survived devastation in Paris and a catastrophe in London. She’d survived her sisters’ marrying aristocrats. At some point he’d make up his mind. And she’d survive that, whatever happened.

Meanwhile, she’d go through the entire establishment, if necessary, putting everything into perfect order until
she
was in perfect order.

She heard his footsteps in the passage and sensed his pausing on the threshold. She didn’t turn around.

“You know I can’t leave when there’s no one to bar the door after me,” he said.

“That’s a good excuse,” she said.

“Come here,” he said.

Her blood boiled. For a moment, the world turned red. She wanted a weapon. A rusty ax would do admirably.

She turned. “ ‘Come here’?” she said. “ ‘
Come here
’? What is
wrong
with you?”

“I tried to go,” he said. “But I can’t leave you like this.” He gestured vaguely about him.

“You can’t leave me in my own house?”

“I don’t want to . . . I didn’t realize . . .” He trailed off, his brow knitting. “You’re angry, and it isn’t safe—”

“You don’t know anything about me,” she said.

“If you’re trying to tell me you can take care of yourself, I know that isn’t true,” he said. “You should have slapped me or kicked me or stabbed me with a hatpin. You didn’t do anything!”

She hadn’t thought it possible to get any hotter without erupting into flames, but she felt her cheeks take fire, and the fire spread everywhere: embarrassment and frustration and an immense, chaotic rage.

“I didn’t want to stop you!” she burst out. “And how dare you blame
me
when you know exactly what you’re doing when it comes to women. Do
not
pretend you haven’t been working on seducing me since the minute we met. You and your ridiculous wager. It doesn’t matter to you whether you win or lose our bet, because you mean to win the thing you really wanted. When it comes to seduction, you surpass any other man I’ve ever met—and possibly ever will meet, though I reserve judgment. Well, you’ve succeeded. And you’re surprised? Indignant? You
object
?”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“Do you know what you meant?” she said. “Because I suspect not. I think you’re like other men, especially aristocratic men, who grow bored more quickly than most. You want what you can’t have, then when you get it, you lose interest. Very well. You’ve lost interest.”

“I have
not
. That isn’t—”

“Funny thing,” she said. “I have. I’m bored now. I want you out of my house. I wish I could tell you to get out of my life, but that would be impractical, and I’m nothing if not practical and hardheaded and orderly. You’ve made anarchy of my work, my responsibilities, my life—you and your fool of a cousin, who can’t remember impregnating a young woman, though he notices every wilting daisy and every sparrow that may or may not be suffering from a fatal c-catarrh.” To her horror, she burst into tears.

He started toward her. She picked up the nearest object—a pincushion—and threw it at him.

“Leonie.”