Chapter 7
ONE BED, LOTS OF KISSING
Persephone’s belly ached from laughing when they reached the next inn past nightfall.
She enjoyed the duke’s company too much.
She wanted to blame the rings, but they were dead.
Attraction, enjoyment—all her own now. She had no excuse but for a heretofore undiscovered yearning for dangerous and morally questionable men. A moral failing, that.
Once stopped in the coaching yard, Morington jumped down from the brougham like an ominous shadow, greatcoat flapping behind him, big boots making an earthquake of his arrival.
She scrambled to follow, receiving a scowl before her foot could touch the ground. He wrapped big hands around her waist.
“I don’t need help,” she grumbled.
“Really?” He whipped her down. Well, almost down. He brought her high then lowered her against his chest, left her stranded there, feet dangling in the air. “Seems to me you can’t reach the ground on your own.
Every point her body touched against his, blazed to screaming life. And that was everywhere. At least on her front. Her back, for its part, seemed to kick and scream—not fair, I want to be touched, too.
She clasped his shoulders—rocks beneath her touch—and every breath pressed her breasts, her belly, against his hard torso. His hands engulfed her lower back, and her legs found a natural space to rest between his.
“P-put me down.”
“A kiss first. For your husband.”
She swallowed. Wanted to make a joke. Couldn’t.
So she kissed him. She meant to make it a quick, chaste peck, but as soon as her lips settled against his, he controlled it.
Controlled her. Then she was clinging, wouldn’t have put her feet on the ground if he’d let her.
She hadn’t talked about Percy since his death, hadn’t wanted to.
She’d wanted to bury him and the rings and her marriage in a grave that cut much deeper than any she dug under a midnight moon.
But you couldn’t bury a heart. Pouring dirt on it did nothing to heal the wounds.
But holding it up in the sunlight and sharing the wounds, letting someone else inspect your faults and fears and saying, See, it is a horrible thing, is it not, but it is mine. Holding and sharing and speaking—those things had felt like a funeral, a letting go, a proper postmortem.
And even though she shouldn’t. Even though this man was selfish and haughty and growly and likely without a single moral, she wanted to kiss him.
It was like a first kiss. Her first kiss after her unlikely rebirth atop the brougham.
And she wanted him to feel the same, like kissing her could make him anew, dig out all bitterness and replace it with hope.
Lips and tongue and teeth and something oh-so sweet. Nothing to do with alchemical magic. Nothing to do with pretending for a crowd.
Only true desire, no matter how ill-conceived. Sometimes the purest desire was also pure foolishness.
Very well then.
Call her a fool, call both of them fools.
But let them kiss.
The sound of a cleared throat. They froze. Another half cough. Morington growled, his hands soft claws on her back.
She patted his shoulder, opened her eyes. “I think we should stop.”
“I say when we stop.”
“Pardon me, sir?” The cougher. He was poking a lion, had no idea. “Are you and your, erm, lady in need of a room?”
She raised a brow. See? We must stop.
His brows rushed together, his lips tight, and his gaze hot on her lips. A clear message there, a firm reply: no.
She kicked her feet. Good God, the indignity. “You must put me down now.” He did, slowly, and when her feet hit the ground and she’d steadied herself, she patted his chest. “Quite good. Thank you.”
He snatched her hand and tugged her toward the inn.
The innkeeper scurried after them. “A room, then?”
“Yes,” Morington barked. “For my wife and I.”
“We have several available, sir. Would you prefer inner access or outer—”
Morington stopped so quickly, the innkeeper slammed into him from behind. “What do you prefer?” he asked Persephone.
“It… does not matter.”
He scowled at the innkeeper. “Your best available.”
The innkeeper did a marvelous job of standing his ground despite the visible tremble shaking his body from head to toe. “Right this way, ah… my lord?”
“Sharpton. Viscount Sharpton.”
The innkeeper bowed low and ushered them inside.
“A real person, I presume,” Persephone whispered.
“A friend from my days at Rugby.” He wore a different man’s face—narrower with a widow’s peak announcing a slicked-back waterfall of black hair.
“Not a friend any longer.” Her own gown had been glamoured into a rich blue velvet. “Does my face look different?”
“No.”
“But—”
“No.”
The innkeeper showed them to a well-furnished room—small, round table and chairs beneath a window, a fireplace opposite that, and a bed dominating the rug-less middle of a room adorned only with a single, curiously detailed painting of a toad.
He promised to send up a hearty repast. Morington let the man leave without a single note of thanks.
“You could be nicer,” she said when they were alone.
“Why?” He’d dropped the glamour and was back to himself, all sneering golden beauty.
“I like you better when you grin,” she said, inspecting the mantel above the fireplace for a tinderbox.
“No, no. You sit. A maid will start a fire when she brings dinner.”
“But I can do it now.”
He grinned, and it twisted up her insides, sent little fireworks blooming along her veins. “Sit. Save your hands for tomorrow night. When we make my fortune.”
Ah, yes, she’d promised to help him with that little task.
But she hadn’t said how she’d help him. She sat and smoothed her skirts.
They were still rich blue velvet, not a single frayed thread in sight.
He’d kept her well-dressed while he’d dropped his own mask.
What a relief to see him—the bumpy nose, the knife-sharp cheekbones, the eyes filled with wicked thoughts.
A knock on the door heralded the maid’s arrival, and Morington clicked his glamour into placed before she entered, and he began barking orders: start a fire, set the food there, we need wine, bring an extra blanket for my wife on the off chance she gets cold at night.
She left in a snit, and with good reason.
“Morington?” Persephone purred from where she sat primly on the bed’s edge.
“Yes?” That blade-sharp voice was morning soft for her. “Has no one ever taught you manners?”
“I’ve no idea what you mean.”
“The innkeeper, the maid. You didn’t even ask their names. And they deserve tips, but you offered none.”
He cocked his head to the side and took two lazy steps toward her. “I’m assuming you won’t allow a repeat of this morning’s glamour activities.”
“I would prefer you not swindle the guests of this inn, yes.”
“Then we must use our funds sparingly.”
“But their names,” she pleaded. “At least learn their names.”
“The innkeeper would likely throw a man traveling on foot right out the door. Wouldn’t even offer him the use of his stables.”
“You don’t know that.”
“The maid gave you one look then addressed every question and concern to me. If she’d respected you as my wife, she would have looked to you and found me useless.”
“And you know this how?”
“My mother and father. She was usually the one in charge, and women knew it. Everyone knows it, I think. Men wouldn’t be able to locate their own feet without the help of their wives.”
“You seem to know where your feet are.”
“I’m not married yet. But the maid doesn’t know that. It was outright disrespect. I’ll not stand for it. I’ll not apologize to you or them for what you consider rudeness.”
“You don’t treat me rudely.”
“Yes, well… you’re”—he blinked several times—“you.”
Hell. She was going to sleep with the man, and not in the snoring sense of the word. She was going to let him fuck her, and she was going to enjoy it. Every soul-damned moment of it.
“Now.” He took her hands and lifted her from the bed, sat her at the small table and chairs near the window, then sat across from her. “I’m famished. Let’s eat.” And eat he did.
She did, too, but without any attention to the meal’s taste.
She wanted to study the duke. His clothes were just as threadbare as her own, but they had been fine at one point, and travel had wrinkled them almost to death.
He tugged at his cravat between large bites of stew until he had it off and tossed carelessly on the floor.
His corded throat worked with every swallow, and she felt a dribble of broth on her chin.
Humiliating. She cleaned it up with a serviette and tried to focus on her food.
But the little, deep hums of appreciation that rumbled from his throat were more than a distraction. They were a seduction.
She was a weak woman, and right now, she didn’t truly care if he was morally reprehensible, that she was only here to sabotage him, that he was a duke and she an alchemist’s daughter. Worse, a penniless grave digger.
No. She did care. She did! He was a haughty, grave-robbing thief, and she would not give into desire.
Yes. Mind made up. She dug into her stew and found a practical strand of conversation to tug. “The glamour work you do… for others?”
“Hm?” He downed a large swallow of wine.
She sipped at hers. “How often do you do it?”
“Not very. I can’t get much for it. Only other titled transcendents have that kind of money. Or alchemists, but they don’t want anything to do with illusions.”
Was that correct, though? Or an assumption? Percy had always envied titled men their power to distort reality.