Chapter 20
It was close inside the apothecary shop: hot, still, the summer air thick with lavender and sweet potent cordials. Ruby had already unfastened the top two buttons at her throat; as she passed by the small square window, she unfastened two more, and then gave in and pulled off her gloves.
Tamsin, Alice, and Princess Serafina had gone ahead to the village, an errand that Ruby suspected was going poorly. The fashionable princess evidently did not enjoy Tamsin’s attempts to disguise her in ill-fitting bonnets or frocks; she’d taken to snarling anytime Tamsin got too close.
Everyone else in the shop was busy with their purchases. The apothecary had gone out, his assistant was harried in the corner, and no one was watching Ruby. At the window, she leaned forward, pressed her palm to the glass, and sighed out her relief. Cool, blessedly cool and—
She looked out the window and her sigh transformed into a hastily stifled gasp.
There, in the shade behind the shop, stood Archer.
Or—leaned, rather. He lounged against the thick-mortared brick, his feet crossed at the ankles, his shirt dangling open at the neck, his eyes blue and hungry.
He saw her notice him. His mouth tipped up, and then he tilted his head, a slow invitation, all languor and syrup.
Come here to me.
Her skin went hotter—a flush of warmth, a flip in her belly. Shards of memories, all fractured by pleasure: his mouth on her skin, his fingers pressed deep inside her, the hot bite of his teeth high on her thigh.
Come here to me, Ruby Ballimore, he’d whispered to her in the dark, the night after the princess had arrived.
The moon had been out, and he’d already pleasured her once that day, and she hadn’t cared, not a whit, that someone might see when she’d made her way to his chamber.
She desired him; she ached for him. She wanted to show him how much.
Let me take care of you, pet. Let me.
And he had—and she had, too—touched and whispered and mapped each flex of his jaw, the hard ridges of his abdomen, the coarse sound of his cry as he spent himself in her fingers or—once—in her mouth.
In the twelve days since the princess had arrived at Pomeroy House, they had found their way to each other in pockets of shadow, in brief unnoticed gaps, and once, a long, slow night of wanting, cresting, wanting again.
Soon they would have an answer from her father. Soon they would be parted.
But not yet. She could have this now. And if, sometimes, pleasure felt like danger—like the anticipation of a knife stroke—she forced her mind away from the pain to come.
She was out the door into the back alley before she could think, and then his hands were on her shoulders and his lips were on hers.
“Thought you’d never look out that window,” he muttered against her mouth. “God, you taste good. Sweet.”
She stood on her toes, gripped his shirt in her fists, and held him close. “Have you been waiting for me?”
“Following you, more like.” He pressed his mouth to her neck, her collarbone, the skin revealed just above her breasts. “Saw you—in the confectionery—ah God, let me undo a few more buttons, darling, and I promise I’ll make it worth your while.”
Her head fell back against the brick. “Anyone could pass.”
“Keep the watch for me,” he murmured. “Please.”
She whimpered as his mouth did something wicked to her ear. His fingers played at the gape of her bodice, dipping into the hot damp valley between her breasts—but he did not move to unfasten her frock further.
She knew he wouldn’t, unless she gave him leave.
In some ways, she was the hungrier, the more reckless.
She wanted to lie with him—she throbbed with it, an empty clenching ache between her legs.
She had not realized, at first, that the string of tiny bruises on her neck had come from his mouth—not until she watched him do the same to the pale skin of her lower belly.
She wanted him to mark her. She wanted him awfully, irrevocably; she wanted to feel his body a part of hers, take him deep into her own fierce need.
But he held back. We can’t, he’d said, when she’d tried to press herself against his thick length that night in his chamber. Sweetheart—oh God, Ruby—you’ve no idea how much I want to. Only we can’t—hazard the risk.
He was right.
She could stand it. She told herself she could stand it—this temporary madness, the brief luminous pleasure of knowing herself wanted, the stars that burst behind her eyelids when he pleasured her with his mouth and hands.
Temporary. But for now, hers to relish. Hers to take.
“I’ll keep the watch,” she said into his hair. But she closed her eyes instead and let herself savor the rough vibration of his lust-drunk groan.
“Thank Christ.” He flicked her next few buttons and yanked hard at her chemise. “Saw you in the sweet shop when I passed. Don’t know what you were eating—something sticky, I collect, by the way you sucked your fingers after. Haven’t had a sane thought since—ah—”
She’d closed her fingers around his erection through his trousers, and then it was a race—his mouth—damp suction, fevered plea—her fingers moving, more firmly than she would have thought he’d like—except he did like it, she knew that now, knew the pitch and gritted gasp of his culmination—
“Let me,” he muttered, and yanked at her skirts, his forehead pressed to her collarbone. “Let me do this for you. Can’t spend in my trousers—”
“My mouth, then?”
“Ruby,” he groaned and licked the inner curve of her breast. “I’d think I’d died, except God knows I’m not headed for this sort of paradise.
” He had his hand beneath her skirts now, but he’d stopped at the level of her garter, his thumb rubbing hot circles into her skin, pressing, seeking.
“So pretty,” he murmured, “so luscious. You taste of sugar and liquor—of sun—God, the sweetness of you—”
“Mm,” she said—wordless affirmation—and felt her thighs go slack. The pins in her hair rubbed against the brick behind her head, little points of almost-pain, and she heard one clink to the ground, and then she heard—
“If you approach me with that devil-spawned article one more time, I will cover you in the grease from a pig and let Zenobia eat you while you still live.”
Ruby’s eyes flew open. “Malcolm,” she hissed, “let me go!”
He was already breaking apart from her, his eyes all hot blue desire, his voice a raspy laugh. “I thought you were keeping the watch.”
“You distracted me!” Good heavens, she didn’t even have her gloves on, and the buttons on her frock still felt impossibly small.
Perhaps—perhaps she could clamp her straw hat over her décolletage—if only she could find her hat, which he’d evidently flung to the ground somewhere in between licking her neck and—and—what had he done to her stocking?
He bent, presumably to tie her garter back on.
“Stand up,” she hissed. She still had four more buttons to do up, and neither the buttons nor her fingers would cooperate. “You can’t be under my skirts if they stroll out the back door!”
“I was rather thinking I could hide under there.” His dimples flashed, gorgeous, irrepressible. “Stay all afternoon.”
“You are dreadful,” she said, and thought, I could live the whole of my life on that smile.
The back door eased open, and Alice put her head out. “Ruby?”
He sobered rather quickly at the sight of Alice. He reversed their positions, setting Ruby between himself and the shop, an action that rather puzzled her until she felt the startling brush of his erect member against her bum.
“Help,” he muttered into her ear, and heaven save her—
She laughed.
“There you are,” Alice said. Her gaze remained fixed squarely at Ruby’s face, and she did not acknowledge Ruby’s deshabille, except if one counted the smothered sound of her voice.
Unlike Tamsin, Alice had not thrown herself into ruthless teasing the first time she’d noticed all the little bites on Ruby’s throat.
“Might you perhaps return to the shop? I fear there’s some—there’s some—”
She broke off beneath the sound of crashing and barking and a screech like a whistle that Ruby was confident had not come from Tamsin.
Ruby gave up on her hat and her right stocking. “To be sure. How were the rest of the errands?”
“Ah,” Alice said, “well. Vigorous?”
Back inside the shop, Tamsin had hustled Princess Serafina into a corner.
The princess, her waist-length black hair pinned up in a crown of shining braids, was glowering at Tamsin.
Her arms were locked around Zenobia, who had been doused in some sort of dark, mysterious liquid.
The whole room smelled powerfully of whiskey and licorice.
“This place is a threat to the public good,” Serafina was saying, a shout-whisper plainly audible even at the back of the store. “It is not Zenobia’s fault that the glass is placed so precariously to spill the tincture.”
“You are the threat,” Tamsin growled back.
The princess gasped. “Never—never in Mon—”
“How many times?” Tamsin pitched her voice higher, either to drown out the princess’s next words or because she could not help herself. “How many times must we remind you that you are meant to be concealed? Not drawing attention to yourself in every store, in every possible fashion—”
“I cannot help that I draw attention!” Serafina hissed. “I am the princess of—”
“If you say the word ‘princess’ again,” Tamsin growled under her breath, “I will give you to your enemies, gift-wrapped with a bow around your neck, and I shall like it—”
Ruby stepped forward. Her stocking collapsed down from her knee and puddled around her right ankle. “Your Highness,” she whispered. “Tam. Perhaps we might recommence this discussion when we return to the house?”
The princess stuck her nose in the air and wheeled away from Tamsin. She waved a hand dismissively. “I had no intention of remaining here until I was set upon.”
“You tried to leave,” Tamsin said, “without paying. Your bloody horrible dog—”
“Do not speak Zenobia’s name!”
“I didn’t. I wouldn’t. I—”
Archer smiled blindingly at all and sundry and interrupted Tamsin’s rising crest of outrage. “Not to worry. I shall pay for the—what was that?”
“Fudding’s Elixir,” put in the apothecary, a round fellow in a fragrant apron who’d been watching the proceedings with avarice-tinted fascination. “Seventeen bottles of it. All in from London just this week.”
“I’ll pay for the Fudding’s,” Archer said. His voice sounded very deep and sweet and the faintest bit reckless. “And any other breakage this party is responsible for. Send the bill to Pomeroy House. We’ll take care of it all.”
Princess Serafina’s mouth pinched, looking distinctly less charmed than Ruby felt. “This means that I shall pay for it, I presume. Since I am the—”
“Yes,” Archer said loudly. “Indeed. You are the . . . purser. Of Pomeroy House. Come along, Madame Purser, and tell me precisely what budgetary wrongs have been done in your name.”
He attempted to take her arm, was greeted by a low snarl from Zenobia, and sidled slightly away instead. He smiled wider, proffered his elbow, and then visibly stifled a laugh when the princess disdained to acknowledge it as she strode out the door and into the sun.
He followed after her, and as he did, he looked over his shoulder and winked at Ruby.
Her cheeks warmed at the sight of him—incorrigible, sunlit, hair still tousled from her own hand.
Oh saints. She was in such terrible trouble.
“She is a plague,” Tamsin muttered as she bent to gather crushed lavender and paper packets of dried valerian. “A torment. A devil.”
“Zenobia?” Ruby asked. “Or the princess?”
Tamsin made a sort of guttural moan. “She made no effort to conceal herself whatsoever, despite promising to do so. She wanted to wear a scarlet morning robe, and then when I told her no, she proposed a bathing costume instead. She nearly caused a riot in the churchyard because she attempted to run off with a marble headstone, and I believe there is still a small stampede ongoing because she somehow terrorized a bull.”
“Do you know,” Ruby said, “I thought you were talking about the princess, but I found myself less and less certain the more you spoke.”
Tamsin threw up her hands in a shower of fragrant herbs and stalked after Archer and Princess Serafina.
Inside the shop, Alice took Ruby’s arm. “Not to worry,” she said to the apothecary. “We can be relied upon to make recompense for . . . all of this.” Her black lashes fluttered as she looked down at Ruby. “Can’t we?”
“Yes,” Ruby said stoutly, and made for the door.
They had only just begun to follow in the wake of their straggling parade of companions when Alice tightened her grip on Ruby’s arm.
“Oh! I almost forgot. The mail coach delivered a letter for you straight into our hands. Well, my hands—Tamsin was busy hauling the princess out of a tavern fight.” She removed a slightly battered envelope from her reticule and passed it to Ruby.
“Here. I think it’s a reply from your father. ”
Ruby froze in the middle of the street.
It was her father’s handwriting, to be sure. She recognized the careful precision of his downward strokes; he cut his quills precisely; his pens never broke or spattered.
She flipped the letter over and found his seal pressed into the smooth circle of crimson wax. Her fingers trembled as she broke it.
He had written back already. Had he discovered with whom Verdura had schemed? Did he have some superior notion in mind for the protection of the princess?
She thought of her father and Cassandra in Rome, hot coffee and rose-petal jam—of Liverpool and the drapes on fire. She thought of the Royal Archaeological Journal, crisp black print on cream paper, laid next to her father’s plate at the breakfast table.
Her chest squeezed tight, and she pictured her father’s lean elegant hands set to pen and ink, and she hoped—she hoped—
And then, instead of hoping, she read his letter.