Chapter Twelve
“I was thinking about you,” Cordon said.
Kitty seemed not to hear. She was still staring at the evidence of his arousal with her mouth open. It wasn’t quite the reaction he’d expected, but it would do. What he really wanted was for her to touch him, ideally without clothes, but that was not possible in such a public venue.
He could close and lock the door to the dressing room, but Alyssa was still listening. She was quiet for a human, but not enough to hide from his vampiric senses. Not even with the intoxicating scent of Kitty’s blood as a distraction.
“I-I insist you control yourself,” Kitty said finally. Her eyes were so wide, he could see the whites all around her pupils. But despite the scolding in her tone, the scent of her arousal betrayed her. It wreathed around him and had the unfortunate effect of worsening his engorgement.
“It is not something I can control,” he said.
But to spare her further embarrassment, he reached beneath the waist of the trousers and tucked himself away so that his erection wasn’t so obvious.
Teasing her was entertaining, but he did not wish her to order him to leave.
They still had twenty tasks to complete together.
She pushed upright with jerky movements.
“Thank you.” Then she tugged the lapels of his jacket rather harder than necessary, forcing him to lean back to avoid toppling over.
As if that indignity weren’t enough, she grasped his elbows and spread his arms apart.
When she stepped back, he lowered his arms, only to have her force him back into position.
“I think there’s a broken thread in one of the back panels,” she said. “Don’t move.”
“What are you doing?” he asked. “You didn’t even make this jacket.”
“Quiet.”
She circled around him, prowling like a lioness, lifting his suit jacket from all angles and peering beneath. Finally, after so long that his shoulders ached, there was a tug near his armpit.
“Got it. Shouldn’t be too hard to fix.”
“Are you about done?” he asked. The evening was taking a boring turn, something he would not tolerate for long. He rarely enjoyed being poked and prodded. Kitty’s touch was more pleasant, but he had more interesting distractions planned that required her presence.
She returned to stand in front of him. “Yes, that should be all.”
“Excellent.” He rested his forearms on her shoulders. “The masquerade is tomorrow. Will you be able to finish the costumes?”
She licked her lips. “Yes.”
“Excellent. I cannot wait to see them.”
She tilted her head. He could practically see the blood flowing through her neck and filling her cheeks.
More than anything, he wanted to taste her again, but that would come later.
He could heal minor wounds with his saliva, but the only way to distract her into not noticing his bite was to make her come apart, as he had at the opera.
He was skilled in pleasure, but not so skilled he could accomplish such a task in her shop when her assistant was lurking around the corner.
As if summoned by his thoughts, Alyssa creaked open the door.
Kitty leaped out of his embrace. “Yes, Alyssa?”
Was it his imagination, or was there a touch of huskiness in her voice?
“A letter for you,” Alyssa said. “I told the messenger you were busy, but he insisted it couldn’t wait.” She held out a red envelope.
Kitty accepted it and turned it around in her hands as Alyssa scurried off.
“Who is it from?” he asked, louder than he’d intended. He did not like the idea of an unknown gentleman corresponding with his mistress. “Do not set it aside on my account. I cannot abide a mystery.”
She cracked open the wax seal. He could not read the slanted writing from where he stood, but the sudden souring of her scent told him it was not good news.
“Blackguard,” she whispered.
“What is it?” he asked.
She crumpled the envelope and threw it into the corner. It hit the wall and rolled toward him.
He bent down, picked it up, and tossed it from hand to hand like a ball. “That bad?”
He dearly wanted to smooth out the wrinkles and read it, but he would not do so without her permission, no matter how intense his curiosity.
“My father,” she whispered. “I told him I would take care of it, but apparently, that wasn’t enough.”
She was all but vibrating with anger. It wafted from her shuddering shoulders like a rancid miasma and before he knew it, he was standing behind her with his hands on her shoulders. “Can I help?”
She laughed, a sharp sound. “Not unless you can convince my parents to give up a lifetime of social ambition.” Then she rushed out of the dressing room, picked up a bolt of white cotton, and slammed it onto her worktable next to a pile of boxes.
“I told my father I’d find some other way to get the money.
” She picked up another bolt, aggressively wound the fabric back onto the roll, then added it next to the other one.
“He insisted, said he’d been carefully setting aside money since I’d started my apprenticeship, and it was mine as long as I could pay it back within a year. I should have known better.”
His heart ached. He didn’t have the full context, but he understood the general idea of familial responsibility.
During his original life, he hadn’t been close to his biological siblings, but there was no limit to the lengths he would go to protect his nest. He picked up a box of spooled lace and began sorting them by size while he listened.
“My mother just visited,” she said, her voice still rising in volume. “She could have said something, warned me that my father had indebted himself again.” The pile on the workbench was now a mountain, the boxes beside the bolts teetering precariously.
“Kitty,” he said. “Maybe you shouldn’t—”
“But no, all she did was ask me to come home, probably so she could continue her begging where it would be that much harder for me to refuse. Ugh!” She slammed another bolt on the worktable. “I cannot believe I am related to them.”
The topmost box tilted over, then slid toward her, taking the entire stack with it.
“Kitty!”
It was too late. The mountain tumbled toward her with the inevitability of a train barreling down its tracks. Instead of running or holding out her hands to shield herself, she stood with her eyes wide and mouth open. She was going to get herself killed.
He threw the box of lace to the side, ran around the table, grasped her wrist, and jerked her out of the way as the boxes collapsed where she had been a moment ago.
The lids gave way, spilling out their contents of multicolored metal buttons, hatpins, and several pairs of wickedly sharp shears that plunged into the floor like thrown spears.
Kitty trembled in his arms. The top of her head came to his throat, and the bitter scent of fear rose from her skin and wafted into his nose.
Her slight but sturdy frame fit perfectly against his leaner body, and her hands were clenched so tightly into the fabric of his suit that prying her away would have caused significant damage.
Not that he wanted her to separate from him. This was a chance to further his goal of completing the newest item on his list. Perhaps it was the shock, or the anger she had been displaying a moment ago, transformed into something else. Whatever it was, she seemed ready to burst into tears.
He had never been good at comforting others. He preferred to bury emotions deep, as life was too short to spend any of it in misery. But she seemed in need of comforting, so he wrapped his arms about her and pressed her face against his shoulder.
After several long moments, in which he became accustomed to the feeling of the dressmaker clinging to him, she pushed away with a sniffle, her eyes downcast.
“I-I apologize,” she said.
Her fingers remained clenched in his jacket, so he did not release her, but rather dropped his arms to loop around her hips.
“No apology is necessary,” he said. “You had quite a fright.”
“I should clean up the mess,” she whispered. She uncurled her fingers from his jacket, then dropped her arms to her side but did not exit his embrace.
“I would take this burden from you, if I could,” he said.
Her laugh was muffled by his shirt. “I’m not used to accepting help. Usually, I am the one doing the saving. I feel… lost.”
It was as if she were describing him. Nearly a third of his existence had been focused on a singular purpose: finding his fated mate. When he’d abandoned that goal, he’d also felt lost. Which made him uniquely situated to give her the advice he wished someone would have given him then.
“Stop worrying about what might happen,” he said. “It will only make it worse.”
She sniffed. “I don’t know how.”
He tugged her closer and kissed the top of her head. “Let me show you.”