Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
A man, dangerously close. A soft pressure, an almost reverent slide of his lips over hers. Then, all at once, demand. He stroked her jaw, lightly, and she tipped her head back. He angled his mouth over hers in a kiss that went from questioning to devouring in a flash.
Heat. Light flashed alive every nerve, like a fireball pushed by the wind. She wouldn’t deny she’d noticed his mouth. She’d noticed a great deal about him—the breadth of his shoulders, the deep blue of his eyes underneath the blond brows, the arrogant slope of his jaw when he delivered that confident smile.
She’d thought—yes, she was a fool—for a flash, a fleeting instant, of his mouth meeting hers. But this—she’d never imagined this .
A small moan pooled at the back of her throat as he shaped his mouth over hers. The sensation was dazzling. His lips were soft and warm and insistent, and excitement rose in her like smoke. She met his seeking mouth, framing his face with her hands. His jaw sprouted stubble, like rubbing velvet against the nap, and the soft friction made her palms tingle. Then he slid his tongue into her mouth and her spine turned to liquid, and she clutched his face so she wouldn’t slide off the desk.
“Enough!” Harry roared.
Melisende opened her eyes. Devlin stared back at her, his eyes a cloudy blue, his expression unfocused. He parted his mouth on a soft breath and she nearly leaned in to kiss him again. To fall into that deep, tantalizing well and not emerge, not for a while.
“Oh, dear,” she murmured. “We’ve been found out.”
“Her?” Florence’s voice was a thin, high shriek. “You went from me to her ?”
“And quite swiftly, it would seem,” her brother said, fury straining his voice. “Or did you come here for an assignation with him, and I was in the way?”
“I don’t suppose I ought to point out you’re in the way now?”
Devlin didn’t step away, but held Melisende’s upper arms lightly. His hands were strong and warm. He, like her, had taken off his gloves to touch the book, and his palms were not the creamy texture of a dandy’s. Their roughness gazed her skin, and she became conscious of all the places in her body that were fully alight, including spaces very close to where he stood between her knees. Close enough that she could press herself against him and see what happened to the flame in her blood when she did.
“I ought to call you out, Devlin.” Harry balled his hands into fists. He couldn’t look Melisende in the eye.
You , she’d said. She hadn’t needed to think about the choice.
“Over your sister, or over Lady Melisende?” Devlin said with his insolent smile. He raised an eyebrow at Florence, standing behind her brother with her fists similarly clenched, her young breasts rising and falling in pants of indignation.
“You—you cad! ” Florence whirled and flounced away—there was no other word for the flurry of ruffles and silk.
Devlin nodded, meeting Harry’s eyes, man to man. “They’re always so surprised when they find out,” he said, a thread of regret in his tone.
Harry muttered a curse and went after his sister. Melisende let out a long breath.
“You will remove every part of your person from mine, sir.”
Devlin looked in her face with a cocky grin. That smile was a blow to the chest, a stone thrown into the pool of liquid heat that her chest had turned into.
“The price of your rescue, milady.”
“I should hardly call it a rescue.” She fumbled beneath her skirts for the book and swept it into her arms as she stood. “Do you suppose he’ll tell everyone?”
“He won’t, but Flory will. She’s an adorable wigeon and won’t have the sense not to betray she had hopes of me.”
“They could not have been high hopes, certainly.”
His gaze dropped to the book, watching as Melisende found the slit in her skirt that led to her pocket and slipped the book inside. The weight against her thigh was a comfort and a triumph. Ten precious volumes in her grasp. Two more to go.
“That ought to be mine. I stole it first.”
“And I thank you for your assistance.” She brushed past him, catching her breath as the heat of his body reached out to her, stirring places that hadn’t quieted from the rush of discovery, the heady swirl of his kiss. “Good evening.”
She was ahead of him on the stairs only because the size of her skirts didn’t allow for two abreast, but as she emerged into the hall where Lady Maplethorne’s guests stood and chatted in small clusters, Devlin caught her glove as she was tugging it back onto her arm.
“Our set is beginning.” He nodded toward the grand saloon, where the fiddler was setting up near the harpsichord.
“I do not recall agreeing to stand up with you.”
“You would not crush my heart by refusing.”
She would not dare make a fuss by pulling her hand out of his; he had a firm grip. There was steel in the man, and a hint of ruthlessness. The errant rascal was a mask he lifted and discarded when he willed.
The tune was “Lady Mary Montagu’s Reel,” the arrangement one published by Ignatius Sancho a few years ago, and the figures were simple: steps forward and back, the partners circling one another, then a dance down the line. There were a dozen couples—Lady Maplethorne had not aimed for a small party—and Melisende felt eyes on her, as if the gossip had spread already.
Then again, there were always eyes on her. Foreign. Unmarried. Unchaperoned, with her free Continental ways and her Continental fashions that all the society matrons mimicked while claiming to distrust and disparage her. She’d been adored in Russia, fêted in France, but in England, those of high fashion put up fences. If she were a feckless man or a wealthy widow, her reception might be much different, but she was the attractive, unwed daughter of a landless duke. She’d be hung for a poacher were it thought she was trying to spring a shackle on the son of a new-made knight or a handsome if unreliable sprig of the wealthy and well-respected Devlins.
That she was moving from one to another as his mistress would be readily believed.
It would also make it harder to obtain what she sought.
“I doubt, sir, there is any power that could crush your heart.” Melisende made the required curtsy as they took their places in the set.
Devlin bowed. “You say that because you do not believe I have a heart to be crushed.”
“More that I believe that organ, in you, to be made of very firm material. Adamant, as it were.”
The fiddler began the lively tune, and Devlin stepped toward her. Those lips had kissed her. Those hands had stroked the skin of her shoulders bared by the plunging neckline of her gown. “Are you after the book, or the map?”
“Both.” She stepped back.
“Why?”
She took his hand gingerly, permitting as little contact as she could. The heat of his skin jolted her nonetheless. “They are family heirlooms. I wish them returned to me.”
He pounced, holding her tightly as she promenaded in a small circle. “How many volumes are there?”
She debated telling him. He’d known what she was searching for. He’d extracted it from a locked desk for her.
What else did he know? How much of a danger was he?
He could also expose her as the thief if she quarreled with him. She had the book on her person, and after he had witnessed Devlin debauching her on his father’s desk, Harry Maplethorne would likely not leap to her aid.
“There are three in England,” she finally said as the figure brought her to face him.
“Did you steal Arendale’s copy?”
His left eyelid flickered as he asked her this. Interesting.
“I only wish I had. I don’t know who did.” But whoever had, the man was her enemy. Mein Feind.
“Why won’t one volume suffice? Why do you need all of them?”
“I want all of them,” she said. “They are collector’s pieces. You saw the detail of the cover, the artistry of the frontispiece. The entire print run is as fine.”
“And you claim no one else can read them.”
“Anyone who knows Ladin can read them,” she corrected. “Do you know anyone who does?”
“And that excuses you for stealing them?”
“Borrowing,” she lied. “I am engaging in a small loan. I will return the volumes to their proper owners when I am—” She caught herself. “Satisfied.”
He pulled her toward him. “Satisfied with what?”
She tugged at her hand, and he held it longer than he ought to have. The other couples, stepping apart to create an avenue for the promenade, stared curiously at them. So, Melisende was certain, did everyone else in the room.
Her name would be linked with Devlin’s after tonight, and not in a way that brought her credit. A woman with her name linked to Philip Devlin’s was envied by the women who wanted his notice, and became suddenly interesting to other men, but the women themselves?—
Were not pure to begin with. Philip Devlin didn’t ruin innocents. If he went about kissing unmarried women in libraries, he had not, until now, been caught out.
“You knew where the book was. How?” she accused him as a set of dancers peeled away and dipped and swooped down the avenue.
His eyelid flickered again. “Lucky guess. I told you, everyone locks that drawer.”
Her father certainly did. He had long since ceased trying to hide his correspondence from Melisende and now let her place it in the drawer herself after she’d finished reading. He’d grown tired of having to replace the locks.
“And you knew I was searching for that book specifically. You watched me at the auction. Why?”
“You are very beautiful, Lady Melisende.”
He put a careless emphasis on her title. She narrowed her eyes at him, and his mouth quirked up at one corner. He enjoyed that she batted his compliment away like chaff on the wind.
“I would like the real answer, please.”
He grasped her hands. Something absurd and intolerable happened to her insides when he stepped close to her, when he touched her. She did not allow men to have this effect on her. She would not permit it from him.
He whirled her merrily down the line, his steps confident, his grip firm. “I will tell you tomorrow when I call upon you.”
“I wish you would not.”
“You’ll want me when you hear what I’m bringing you.” He leaned forward and dropped the words in her ear just as the music ended and the dancers fell apart. “You see, I have Arendale’s book.”