With This Kiss (22 page)

“Touching you.”

“Why?”

“Do I need a reason?” When she didn’t reply, he lifted his shoulders in a detached shrug. “I thought the entire point of this exercise was to demonstrate how madly impassioned we are with each other. Difficult to make that impression without engaging in a small, scandalous display of affection, don’t you think?”

“Perhaps if we—”

“Do you like that?” he asked, discreetly pressing his legs against hers as they moved in time to the music.

Julia wasn’t sure whether she liked it or not. She only knew that the feel of his long, masculine thighs pressed so intimately against her skirts caused her head to spin and her pulse to double its tempo. “What would you have me say?” she stalled.

“The truth, if you please.”

She swallowed hard and admitted softly, “I suppose it’s not intolerable.”

He grinned and bent slightly forward. “Careful,” he said, his breath falling in a warm whisper against her neck. “You’ll ruin me for certain with such lavish praise.”

Julia took a deep breath to gather her wits, and then lifted her gaze to meet his. “Why do I suspect this has nothing whatsoever to do with Lazarus?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know—”

“Is this a ploy to lure me into your bed?” she boldly asked.

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“Whether it’s working.”

A reluctant smile touched her lips. “Are you always this horrible?”

“Habit, I suppose.”

His jesting reply touched off a deep insecurity that Julia hadn’t been aware of until that moment. Seducing women was indeed an ingrained habit as far as her husband was concerned. And yet he had acquiesced so easily to her request that they put off their lovemaking until they knew one another better. It suddenly struck her that his consent might have been obtained not out of a wish to please her, but simply because he didn’t find her desirable.

Apparently sensing her shift of mood, he asked, “What is it?”

She searched his gaze, then hesitantly replied, “I know why I asked you for three months’ time,” she said. “But I don’t know why you allowed me it.”

Morgan studied her in silence for a long moment. Finally he said, “Is it so impossible to believe I’d like to be desired in return, princess? I want an heir, but I also want you to come to me willingly.”

On that astonishing note the last strains of the waltz died away. He abruptly released her and stepped backward, concluding the dance with a small, polite bow. As they moved off the dance floor, an acquaintance of Morgan’s joined them. After the greetings and introductions were exchanged, the man requested Julia’s hand for the next dance. With little choice but to graciously accept his invitation, she left Morgan’s side and stepped onto the dance floor with Edward Southesby.

She quickly discovered that her new partner was not only handsome, charming, and intelligent but a perfect gentleman as well. Yet despite her cheery smiles at the harmless bits of gossip they exchanged as they danced, Julia felt distinctly bereft. Something was missing. Edward Southesby, she finally realized, had one distinct, unalterable flaw.

He wasn’t Morgan St. James.

Lazarus swallowed hard, barely able to contain his joy. A bead of sweat trickled down his collar as giddy excitement seized him. She was here. Flame. His Flame. She had come. More important, she had touched him. In a gesture of undeniable significance, her arm had brushed against his as they passed each other in the hall. Contact. What exquisite torture. He had been angry earlier, but now he understood. Of course she had slipped away. She had been waiting for him to come to her once again, to show her his power, his compassion, his faith. But he had let her down, driving her into the arms of another. He had abandoned her for two years so she had sacrificed herself, taking Morgan St. James. The Beast. The man Lazarus had personally punished for his sins. The man Lazarus had forever marked with fire. Surely that was no coincidence.

It all made sense now. It was a game. A sweet, fickle, feminine game. Flame was testing him. She had sacrificed herself in order to get to him. He watched her move through the crowd, a beacon of purity and light within the decadent interior of the grand salon. She paused in mid-step and scanned the room. As her gaze met his, a small, polite smile curved her lips. Then she turned away and continued to survey the room as though she were looking for someone else.

But he knew better. Her look had been deliberate. She was letting him know that she recognized him. He had seen it in her eyes. It was a sign. She was letting him know that she knew what he was thinking. She understood. Together they shared a holy mission to cure London of all its evils. They alone saw the sin that gripped the city. The filth and hopelessness and despair. Tomorrow she would write about it in her column. She would write about this very room: the sanctimonious, fleshy crowd that ate fine food and smoked rich tobacco while the rest of London begged for scraps. She would describe the gluttony, the vanity, the debauchery.

She would write about his cleansing touch.

Lazarus experienced a blazing flash of insight. That was what she wanted. That was the reason she had sought him out. To offer him encouragement. To silently praise his judgment. To let him know that she had not abandoned him after all.

Joy. It swelled up within him, nearly bringing him to his knees. He swayed against the wall in an ecstasy of pure bliss. He felt omnipotent. Soaring. His emotions erupted within him like a wave of pure sexual tension. His nerves tingled, and his heart tripled its rhythm. Breathless desire seized him.

Yes.

It would be his triumph. No one would know but the two of them.

He thought he would explode. Now. It had to be now. Flame was right. A cleansing. The room needed a cleansing. He had to honor her trust. This was not the way he liked to do it. He liked privacy. Hours of meticulous planning. But he had no choice. She was waiting. He scanned the room, looking for just the right place. It had to be beautiful. Worthy of her.

Then he saw it. Near the arched entryway that led from the grand salon into the dining room. A large round table covered with a damask cloth. An artfully arranged bouquet of summer flowers and a pair of sterling silver candlesticks sat atop it. Behind it hung a pair of magnificent floor-to-ceiling drapes, framing a mirror of massive scale in which the dancers were reflected. The candles’ blaze was reflected within the mirror. The tiny flames shimmered and danced, leaping and fluttering with incandescent brilliance.

A shiver of delight ran through him. Perfect. So perfect. The room was hot, crowded, engulfed in noisy confusion. It would be worse in a moment. There would be chaos. Pandemonium. Smoke. He crossed the salon, nodding politely to his acquaintances as he moved. Their blank smiles added to his sense of private exhilaration. Amazing that no one knew… no one would ever suspect.

At last he reached the table. He casually brushed against it, giving it a deliberate bump with his hip. That was all it took.

The candles wavered. The left stick wobbled and tipped over. It rolled across the surface and plummeted down between the table and the wall, disappearing into the heavy folds of the drapery. Lazarus held his breath, waiting in a state of delicious tension. Had the flame flickered out? Had it betrayed him?

A tiny crimson spark erupted within the rich cloth. A small puff of smoke immediately followed.

Glorious.

Deep satisfaction curled within him as he turned and stepped briskly away.

All for you, my love. All for you.

Morgan was not by nature a possessive man. Nor was he in the habit of acting like an ass. Tonight, however, he seemed to be making an exception on both counts.

Raw frustration and edginess welled within him. Focus, he thought. What mattered was capturing Lazarus. But his thoughts kept tangling, moving in a grimly repetitive circle of anxiety and unease. He wanted Julia by his side, where he could keep her safe and protected. Unfortunately that defeated their purpose entirely. In the end there was nothing he could do but leave her to mingle about the room in hopes of drawing Lazarus out.

That did not mean that he enjoyed watching her dance with other men. Or watching those men make fools of themselves in an attempt to win her favor. Thus far, however, that summed up the entire dismal course of the evening. Julia talking and laughing, a swirling, shimmering vision in apricot silk. Morgan watching and brooding, waiting for Lazarus to leap out from behind a potted palm like some evil villain in a farcical melodrama.

Dutifully playing his role, he scanned the room and found his bride almost at once. She was deep in conversation with an elderly couple he didn’t recognize. She caught his gaze and smiled slightly, then tilted her head, an expression of serene patience on her face as she strove to hear the elderly couple over the din of the crowds and the orchestra.

Momentarily turning his gaze away from her, he pulled a timepiece from his pocket and gave it a cursory glance. Half past midnight. The bell for supper would be rung shortly. They would eat and drink, then the evening would drag on to its merciful conclusion. Had he forgotten how tedious these galas were? Or was this event worse than the others? Impossible to imagine that he had once enjoyed this sort of thing.

The room was stifling. The uncharacteristic heat of the evening made worse by the crush of bodies and the lack of fresh air. Winterbourne’s guests had been arriving in a steady stream all evening. The salon had likely been designed to comfortably accommodate one hundred people, perhaps one hundred and fifty. Morgan glanced around the room and estimated the current capacity to be at least twice that number.

All in all, the party would doubtless be deemed a smashing success. The orchestra was excellent, the room was stunning, the guests included the best names in all of London society, and the wine and spirits were generously dispensed in an effort to compensate for the heat. To that end Morgan noted that quite a few of the company seemed to be overindulging in the libations, turning the already overheated crowd somewhat rowdy and edgy. But that hardly presented a hazard at present. There would be ample time to pay for their overindulgence tomorrow morning, when they awoke clutching their heads in misery.

He returned his attention to Julia. She had left the elderly couple and stood surrounded by her aunt, uncle, and cousins. Other than her obvious discomfort at being cornered by her relatives, she was fine. As a change of pace, Morgan decided to do something gallant and rescue her from her predicament.

Before doing so, however, he scanned the crowd one last time. His gaze fell on a little girl of perhaps six, trying and failing to stifle a yawn as she moved through the crowd carrying a tray of canapes. She wore a ridiculously formal emerald green gown; her curly blond hair — elaborately swept up earlier — now fell about her shoulders in weary disarray. The child was part of a passing fad, but one that was currently all the rage. Beautiful, impoverished children dressed in rich clothing who assisted the servants, almost as though they were part of the decor. There were a dozen boys and girls like her in the room, all wilting with the heat and noise and lateness of the hour.

While Morgan watched, a glob of hot wax dripped down from the candelabra above her and fell on her sleeve. The little girl issued a cry of alarm and jumped to the side. If the candle itself had fallen, catching the long train of her gown…

As that grim thought took root in his mind, a flash of flame appeared just over the child’s head.

Morgan froze, unable to move. The moment seemed to stretch out forever. He knew with stark, gut-wrenching certainty it was all happening again. The little girl. The flame.

So quickly. It happened so quickly.

His pulse leaped to his throat as his muscles tensed in readiness. A split second before he lunged forward to grab the child a second movement caught his eye. The motion of a man’s dark sleeve reflected within a glass pane just above the little girl’s head. A man was standing on the terrace outside the grand salon. He had struck a match and lifted it to the tip of his cigar. What Morgan had witnessed was a reflection of the flame within the glass. That was all. Nothing more. Nothing dramatic. Merely an illusion. A trick of the eye.

Morgan swallowed hard, clenching his fist around the glass he held. Lifting the brandy to his lips, he took a deep swallow. Unfortunately the drink did little to steady his nerves. The fleeting image of the little girl and the flame had left him shaking, drenched in a cold sweat. As he turned away, the man he had seen lighting the cigar waved to catch his eye. Morgan recognized Joseph Perryman. Seizing the excuse for a temporary respite, he managed a tight smile in return and left the room, stepping outside to join his friend.

Julia scanned the room once again for Morgan. She wasn’t desperately in need of her husband’s presence as much as she was desperate to be extricated from her present situation: keeping company with Marianne and Theresa. It wasn’t that she disliked her cousins. She simply had nothing in common with them. They were both completely feminine — in a manner she found completely annoying. At the moment they were engaged in a pastime they clearly found to be of the utmost enjoyment — issuing scathing critiques of the other guests’ ball gowns.

“Did you
see
Lady Vackerby?” Marianne inquired in a hushed whisper, leaning forward in conspiratorial delight as she cast a sly glance at the woman whose gown had so deeply offended her sensibilities. “I mean, really.
Purple
lace? And she hasn’t even the dignity to—”

A shrill scream pierced the echoing din of laughter and conversation that filled the grand salon.

Marianne paused abruptly.

A second scream followed the first. A shocked, quizzical hush fell over the salon at the unprecedented disturbance. The orchestra paused, as did the guests who filled the crowded dance floor. Heads turned. An eerie, unnatural silence hung over the assembly. Then an audible gasp echoed through the chamber as horrified understanding set in.