Chapter 9 #2
“You mean that dry cough in a waistcoat we met this evening?” he asked, smirking at her.
“Jonathan Redwynne. Your father’s future chaplain. That dry cough was my first kiss, Ambrose,” she answered, flashing him a smug little grin at the way his smirk immediately melted away to be replaced with shock. “Oh, yes.”
He pressed his lips together. “You should have told me that back at the palace.”
“Should I have?” she asked, leaning forward, her fingers brushing against his knee. “Why? What would you have done?”
He reached forward, pinning her fingers to his breeches with his eyes locked on hers. “I suppose you’ll never know now,” he said. “Will you?”
She drew her lip between her teeth, holding his gaze for a moment, the warmth of her hand melting through her glove and the skintight fabric over his knee, setting him half ablaze, but she did not wrest herself free.
“I suppose not,” she allowed. “My loss.”
He released her slowly, without breaking his gaze, and let her draw herself back, pleased to see the flush of color on her throat and the slight increase in the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. He did not move otherwise, not trusting himself to.
“He was kind to me,” she said softly, after a moment.
“And he had all his hair then. I’d never gotten attention from a boy before, and he seemed like another element of the fantasy I’d fallen into during that visit.
I’d catch him watching me, he’d ask me questions quietly after dinner, and then one afternoon, he kissed me.
Unfortunately, Caroline walked in just as the event occurred. ”
“And the force of her fury blew all the hair out of his crown,” Ambrose guessed, quirking his lips to the side.
She giggled, shaking her head. “I truly didn’t know that she had designs on him, but I suppose their families had always intended for them to court when they reached adulthood, and she was more than happy with that arrangement.
She was furious. She flew into a screaming, stomping rage.
She tore my dress, she called me an urchin and a whore and an upstart, accused me of seducing him, scratched at her own face, broke a lamp.
It was all rather a lot. And he just stood there staring like he was innocent in all of it, even though he would have been more than happy to lead us both down the garden path all Christmas if he could’ve gotten away with it. ”
“Were no adults present?” Ambrose asked, gaping at the image as it unfolded in his mind. “Mr. Sedgwick seems such a sensible man.”
“He was sensible enough to send for an early carriage back to Bath-Spa,” she replied, shaking her head.
“When Caroline returned to school after Christmas, she told everyone I’d tried to escape my station by seducing a man above my means, and that I should never be trusted because I would surely try it again someday.
She would hiss in whispers as I’d pass that it was disgraceful that I could ever believe someone like myself worthy of a man of such genteel standing as a future chaplain to a duke.
The other girls were happy to sing along to her tune. ”
Ambrose felt his jaw creak without even realizing he had been gnashing his teeth together. He forced them apart, the muscle in the base of his jaw jumping in protest.
“So you see,” she said with a smile, “she is likely at home tonight, reckoning with the fact that I did indeed step outside my station again, and this time I did so well beyond the scope of her little parson and his aspirations. The next time she sees me, she will be forced to call me Lady Aster.”
“You did not go far enough,” he said, surprised at the depth of his rage. He wasn’t even convinced he was capable of real, righteous anger when he awoke this morning. “You were merciful.”
She gave a wry little shake of her head. “Do you know that she sends me a Christmas card every year? They always say the same thing: Remembering the important lessons of the Christmas season. Yours, Caroline Redwynne. Every year. Without fail. She started doing it while we were still in school.”
“I can have her father dismissed,” Ambrose said darkly. “I can ensure her husband never finds station in my family’s home.”
“Yes,” said Vix happily. “You can. And she knows that. She will have to worry about it every day now, for the rest of her life. Goodness, but I ought to have invited her to the wedding for good measure.”
“There’s still time,” he replied, “but I’d prefer not to have to punch a man on my wedding day.”
“Oh, my sweet Ambrose,” she said, fluttering her lashes. “I hear you’re very fond of punching from time to time.”
He paused, confusion stuttering into bashful surprise. “Hannah?” he said, coloring.
She nodded.
“Well, look,” he said, opening his hands and shrugging. “Before you, I didn’t have much in the way of stimulation. That actually leads well into my tale of woe.”
“Your tale of heroic knighthood, you mean?” she asked, leaning back in the chair with a feline little smile.
“Woe,” he agreed, nodding. “Though I’m afraid the whole thing feels a bit flaccid now in comparison to yours.”
“Too bad,” she said with a shrug. “Speak.”
“My story is also at Christmas,” he said with a sigh, running his hand through his hair, pulling all its careful styling free as he ruffled it under his fingers.
“This last one. I had nothing to do with myself and there was a party at a manor just outside of the city, some pompous, intolerable thing that was only slightly better than sitting at home and staring at a wall, so I went.”
“You poor thing,” she cooed.
He frowned at her, dropping his hand in his lap, hair falling down over his brow. He leaned toward her, resting his elbows on his thighs. “Did they teach sarcasm at that fancy school of yours, young lady?”
“Oh, they did,” she answered. “But only once Teddy started paying full tuition. I was given access to all manner of delicious new lessons.”
“Like learning new lessons, do you?” he asked, plucking at the satin folds of her skirt, running the fabric between his fingers.
She hesitated, the little muscles on her throat flexing. “Your story,” she reminded him thinly, making him chuckle.
He let the satin drip through his fingers, watching it fall, and sighed at the loss.
“It was Christmas Eve. I’d won four hands of cards that night.
I’d found a damned pearl in my oyster at dinner.
I’d batted off two women trying to sneak into my bed.
I wanted nothing more than to lie there, stare at the wallpaper, and cease to exist.”
“Yes, all of that sounds very terrible,” she tutted, conveying her lack of sympathy with pinpricks of venom in her voice.
“Do not patronize me,” he moaned. “You don’t understand the pain of a total lack of friction until you’ve experienced it. Imagine being blind and deaf and floating in water with no temperature. Life should feel like something. There should be effort of some sort, shouldn’t there?”
“Ambrose,” she said, tilting her head. “This is why men try to punch you.”
“Yes, I know,” he replied with a frown. “Anyway. I was in my borrowed room in this ridiculous mansion, lying on the eiderdown, staring at the ceiling, wondering why my life felt like nothing and trying to suffer in peace when Zeller came barreling in, shouting in his accent about a fire. Zer is a fire. We must go. Et cetera. I told him I was busy, but he would not piss off.”
“How dare he?” she wondered mildly.
“I know,” he said with a shake of his head. “I even tried to put the pillow over my face, but he actually tried to pull me bodily from the bed, making bombastic German noises until I finally agreed to stand and leave of my own accord. By then, I could smell the smoke, so I suppose he had a point.”
“Mm,” she said dispassionately, winning a little sidelong glare from him.
“Anyway, once we got out into the hall, there was quite a lot of heat and haze, and it was hard to see. We were bent at the waist, waddling toward the exit like a pair of fools, when I noticed an old man going in the wrong direction. All I did”—he paused, his eyes widening for emphasis”—all I did was reach out and turn him about in the correct direction, then give him a nudge toward the door.
The bloody bastard was some dignitary from the Home Office.
As soon as we got outside, he collapsed at my feet and thanked me for saving his bloody life. ”
“Well, you did,” she said, blinking.
“I did not,” he protested. “And that would have been bad enough, but then people heard him, including his damned family, who then started barking about it to anyone who would listen. The whole thing spread faster than the fire did.”
“Yes, gossip does that,” she said, very clearly trying not to laugh at him again.
“Why didn’t they knight bloody Zeller?” he demanded. “He saved my life, didn’t he? Why weren’t we both up there getting sworded by the queen?”
“Well, you would have had to nominate him, darling,” she told him in her governess voice, like she was soothing a tantrum. “You still could, if you wish.”
He paused, stunned for a moment by the possibility. “Could I?”
“Yes,” she said, watching him. “Don’t.”
“But I could?”
“Ambrose.”
He grinned at her. Then he yawned. He yawned like someone had thrown the yawn at him from across the room with violent force.
That actually did make her laugh, her hand coming up over her mouth as she did it.
“You’re going to sleep here tonight,” she informed him, gesturing to a sofa in the corner of the room. “You can go home in the morning. I hear you sleep fine on assorted furniture.”
“But you have a bed,” he said, inching forward, his fingers reaching toward her skirt again. “You’re almost my wife, aren’t you?”
“Almost,” she agreed. “Unfortunately, you once expressed concern for my reputation, and now I have to think about it, so no bed for you.”
“Oh,” he said, frowning. “Very cruel. May I at least have a blanket?”
“I suppose,” she said, standing before he could get a good grip on that skirt of hers. “Come on.”
He looked at her offered hand, still clad in a satin glove, and wrapped his fingers around it, heaving himself to his feet.
He then, conveniently, lost his balance a little, and had to wrap his arms around her to steady himself, pulling her up against him with firm precision, quite at odds with how unsteady he evidently was.
“Ah,” he said, tutting at himself as he slid his hands along the curve of her back to rest at her hips, tilting his head down to look into her face. “Clumsy.”
She was very still, not even breathing, clearly shocked to have been gathered up like this. He smiled at her, smugness tugging at the corners of his lips as he filled his palms with the cool satin covering those swinging hips that had been tormenting him for half the night.
Her gloved hands were caught together against his chest, her fingers turned inward, wrists pressed together. When she finally did draw a breath in, she did so shakily, and did not otherwise move out of his grasp.
It was all he needed.
He dipped his head down to capture those lips, at long last, against his own, a little groan of satisfaction escaping his throat as he did.
They were exactly as soft, as full, as pillowy as he had imagined, tasting faintly of champagne and something deeper, like berries that had been grown in the dark shade of her aspirations of revenge.
She kissed him back, her lips moving against his, her mouth parting for his tongue when he flicked it curiously against the line of her bottom lip.
He did not release her, gathering her closer as he tilted his head and indulged, slowly, in tasting her. He was not demanding or ravenous. He was instead grateful to be granted this taste of something divine, something sweet that promised much, much more.
When he pulled back, his eyes half lidded and his blood singing, he found her staring up at him wide-eyed, looking far younger and more innocent than he had ever seen her before.
“That,” he said, “was your first kiss. I will not hear otherwise.”
She blinked, licking the taste of him along the seam of her lips, and nodded.
“Yes,” she said softly, staring up at his face in a kind of awe. “Yes, I think it was.”