Chapter Six
The effects of Bessie’s tisane left Adrian feeling as if he had been separated from not only his pain, but the intensity of his earlier sentiments. Ensconced in this bubble, his gaze followed the movement of the widow’s rippling veil like a Mesmer patient might have followed that doctor’s watch.
If Bessie kept speaking long enough, he, too, might end up in a trance.
Or, perhaps, he felt bewildered because he was unaccustomed to subjecting himself to anyone’s demands…
one of the many reasons he had not set foot in Almack’s since his return.
He didn’t care how exclusive the Patronesses’ list. He saw no reason to wear breeches in town on the sole insistence of a handful of shrews.
And yet here he was, listening to a set of preposterous rules delivered by the proprietress of a gaming hell and laid out by an impertinent seductress without social standing or stature.
Listening, and intending to heed.
Sitting erect and still, but for her gently flowing veil, the widow slowly listed the Blackbird’s requirements—one, that they only agree, at present, to a single meeting, two, that Adrian be blindfolded for the whole of their time together, three, that he tutor her in carnal pursuits, and, four, that he refrain from any activity that could result in the birth of a child.
“What of my demands?” he grumbled.
“I offered to negotiate on your behalf. Those are her terms. Accept them and have your distraction or hold to your usual conditions and spend what is left of the night alone.”
“If the Blackbird doesn’t wish to be properly bedded, why would she agree to meet me again at all?”
Bessie lifted a shoulder in a gallic shrug. “She desires an introduction to the world of physical delight, an education in the ways she might pleasure, and be pleasured. Forgive me for thinking you might be interested.”
He hated having been cornered, but he was interested. Their connection—both physical, and something deeper—was like was like nothing he’d ever experienced before.
Still, after having the Blackbird run out on him, he didn’t trust her change of heart.
“Why?” he asked.
“Her reasons are my concern, not yours.”
“You swear this isn’t a trick?”
Bessie shook her head. “Not a trick.”
“All other means of exploration are permitted?”
“Any,” Bessie clarified, “the woman permits. Remember, she’s not had a great deal of experience. You must be gentle.”
Adrian snorted. Nothing about their kiss had been gentle. In fact, he’d the distinct feeling she had wanted to devour him. He had a hard time believing she was in any way uninitiated in carnal pursuits.
Whether their meeting had been a mistake or not, she’d grabbed his shirt, igniting a contest of wills. She had been the one who had insisted he don a blindfold. She had been the one to knot her fingers in his hair, to run her nails down his neck.
She was a woman who knew what she wanted and had the fire within to achieve her wishes.
He needed to see her again.
While he waited for Bessie to return, he’d spent time staring into the fire, reliving everything he could remember from the very first glimpse of the Blackbird’s lifted ankle to the way she’d sighed against his lips as she pressed the length of her body into his own.
He’d decided right then to agree to whatever terms she devised…for his own purposes.
Without breaking the rules of the game, he intended to learn everything he could about her. The longer their encounter, the more he’d discover. The more he’d discover, the easier to ascertain her identity later.
Her preposterous conditions only complicated his aim.
“Well?” Bessie prompted.
“You say she will only meet me once?”
“I said this agreement, at present, was for one meeting. She may or may not be interested in extending your arrangement.”
Oh, when he was finished, she’d be interested, all right. He’d make sure she’d leave his bed unable to ever forget him.
“I accept her terms.”
“I applaud your choice.”
“Not that I had much of a choice.”
Bessie ignored him, rose, and then made her way out. Looking back one, last time, she said, “I will have Hermia bring the Blackbird to you. Be ready. And remember—be gentle.”
He frowned at the closing door.
He’d known the Black Widow a long time.
If she hadn’t told him outright that she’d played no intentional part in bringing this woman to the Lyon’s Den, the smile in her voice just then would have increased his already simmering suspicion that there was more to this “mistake” than he currently grasped.
However, though Bessie rarely told the whole truth, she did not, in his experience, lie.
He bent down and wrestled off his shoes.
Bracing his hand on the bedpost, he unbuttoned his falls.
Then, leg by leg, he tugged off his trousers.
Lastly, he removed his shirt before tossing it all over the arm of the chair, completing the collection of discarded attire he’d begun when he’d first entered the room.
Since he never wore drawers, when he slipped between the bed sheets, he was, but for a blindfold, as bare as the day he’d been born.
He hoped to disconcert her, and she could not say she hadn’t been warned. After all, he’d already told the Blackbird his custom was to disrobe.
He arranged a sheet around his person as best he could without being able to see. Low light would be enough to obscure the raw patches on his thighs, but the sheet provided added protection.
In this onslaught, he intended to keep any weakness well hidden.
The bedlinens, as usual, were soft. The mattress well-ticked and comfortable. But the tisane had laid the thickest layer between himself and his torment. Even if he hadn’t already felt fuzzy and warm, he suspected his heightened anticipation would have kept his discomfort at bay.
He folded his arms behind his head and sank back into the pillow.
The Blackbird had known him. Recognized him. She thought his wearing blindfold would protect her, but she was wrong. He would test for weaknesses. He would keep her off guard. And even if it took him more than one meeting to learn her name, tonight, he would sear her soul.
Perhaps—his heart whispered—he might find in her, everything he hadn’t known he’d been seeking—strength, passion, resilience.
His heart was not to be trusted. The rational side of him, on the other hand, had solid motives.
After tonight, he’d know exactly how to touch her in a way that would make her blush.
Perhaps even stammer. If she threatened to use their association against him, all he needed to do approach her in such a way in a public forum.
Her own reaction would betray herself, and she would learn she’d crossed the wrong man, all without him ever having to say a word.
A light knock on the door interrupted his reverie.
“You may enter,” he called.
The lock clicked and the door slid across the carpet.
“Are you blindfolded?” The woman who’d asked the question was not the Blackbird, but Hermia.
“I am,” Adrian answered.
Two women—Hermia and, he assumed, the Blackbird—conversed too quietly for Adrian to discern their words. Fabric rustled. Pins tinged. Finally, one of the two crossed the room. Again, the door opened and closed. Then, silence reigned.
He and the Blackbird were alone.
Her feet shuffled progressively across the floor. By his estimation, she was now standing very close to the side of the bed. A delicious sense of anticipation tingled everywhere from his fingertips to his toes.
“Are all your clothes over the chair?”
Her voice had a unique, lyrical quality. Precise vowels. Polished consonants. Being admonished by the Blackbird was almost like being scolded by a chaste governess.
Was he depraved to enjoy her disapproval?
Or did the rebuke in her tone plump his manhood because he’d never had an assignation with a woman who sounded like a proper lady before?
“As I told you, disrobing is my custom and preference. I’ve agreed to several of your terms. This one is mine.”
Silence. Then another round of subtle fabric whispers. The rings holding up the bed curtain scraped along the rail and the air around him cooled. He turned his face in the sound’s direction.
Strange how the blindfold honed his other senses while also heightening his curiosity. He’d never felt conversation necessary to love making before. But in obligatory darkness, her voice became a thread between them and every exchange—either of words, or simply of sound—a sensual tug.
Fascinating. This weakness—being unable to see—was balanced by a corresponding strength—focused attention.
Was that true of other “weaknesses”?
Perhaps he should not have been as stringent with his other lovers. Maintaining such iron-clad control may have been a mistake. Then again, he was not experimenting with blindness and titillating discussion by choice. He’d agreed to this assignation, yes. But she’d set the terms.
Why? He intended to find out.
“You told me you hadn’t come here for the reasons I assumed, and yet…” He let the sentence dangle.
“And yet,” she repeated. “I am here.”
“What do you want from me?”
She hesitated. “You answer first.”
“I imagine you’ve already guessed my motivation.”
“I’ve said I wouldn’t allow…” Her voice went faint. Uncertain.
“Coitus?” he finished for her, smooth and low. He’d considered using a harsher term but decided against vulgarity. He wanted to draw her in, not send her fleeing a second time. “Not necessary for my purposes.”
“Which are?”
“Chiefly? Distraction.”
“Dis-trac-tion?” Her voice raised with each enunciated syllable. Her ts sharpened into knife points. “Is that all women are to you?”
The verbal slap stung. After all, he’d taken pains to make sure he did not harm his lovers. He’d raised no expectations. He’d no by-blows. He’d no reason to be ashamed about his treatment of women.
On the other hand—he forced his pique to calm—he’d no idea what evils she’d experienced.
Perhaps her husband was—or had been—a man like his father. He shunted aside a flair of guilt and refocused on his aim—information.
“So much bitterness,” he murmured, “in one so young.”
“I may not have reached my majority—”
So, younger than twenty-five.
“—but I have more than two decades to my name. More than enough time to have experienced perfidy.”
Between twenty and twenty-four, then. Older than he would have guessed. “But can we at least agree that I have not betrayed you?”
“You would, if I gave you a chance.”
Oh, yes. Some man had caused her harm.
Life could be extraordinarily unfair to young women. Even harder, he suspected, with someone of her fiery depth.
“Mrs. Dove-Lyon tells me you wish to practice the ways of pleasure. Are you a widow? Or simply suffering from boredom?”
“I would never be unfaithful—”
A widow of a faithless, unhappy marriage, then?
“—and I won’t answer any more questions.”
She didn’t have to. She’d revealed enough. For now.
“Are you sure?” He cocked his head as if he were studying what he could not see. “If I don’t ask questions, how am I to fulfill your desires?”
“Oh.” The long soft quality of her sigh held a wealth of carnal possibility.
From her voice, her scent, he knew she and the Blackbird were one in the same. And yet he could not reconcile this tentative creature with the lady who’d accosted him earlier.
Had his nakedness disoriented her so badly?
Surely, as a widow, she must be well-acquainted with the male form.
Then again, he knew men who preferred chaste couplings with their wives. Poor thing. Clearly, some man had left her embittered, angry, and unsatisfied.
That much he could rectify.
“Come, Blackbird.” He lifted the sheet. “Lie down with me. Let us begin your education.”