Chapter 9 #2
“Isabel and her sister, Eva, have this dressmaking business together, and it got me to thinking and dreaming. Not about making dresses, but a business where I can instruct folk how to make themselves fashionable. You see, being a stylish lady ain’t just about wearing a pretty French dress or the most expensive strand of South Sea pearls.
It’s how a lady wears that dress and them pearls, and the thing I’ve learned is that most women—ladies and otherwise—they’re not born knowing how to accomplish that.
But me? I was.” She shrugged. “And there is my business opportunity.”
A few beats of time ticked past where Lord Rhys studied her silently and she sat very still with her hands clasped in her lap, fingernails digging half-moons into her palms.
“When do you plan to start your business?” he asked, at last.
She didn’t hesitate. This was a point of pride for her. “In fifteen years.”
His brow wrinkled. “Fifteen years?” He looked genuinely perplexed. “How old are you? Twenty…”
“I’m five-and-twenty years old,” she stated, sounding no small bit huffy.
“So, when you start your business, you’ll be—”
“Forty years old.”
He was proper scowling at her now. “That’s too far in the future.”
“Well, that game of Loo brought it in by a few years, didn’t it?”
His brow released as if an unanticipated thought had struck him. “Is this about money?”
“Aren’t most things?” The good and the bad, she wouldn’t say, but truly, lords and their loose association with the concept of economics.
“Why don’t you ask Lady Percival to help you?”
“I’ll not be repaying the new life she gave me by begging from her. My business will start as I mean it to go on—under my own steam. I’ll not borrow a penny to see it through.”
A few seconds ticked past while he churned her words, and her blood cooled a few degrees. “And those books,” he said, pointing, “are of use to you in your endeavor?”
“Aye, they are,” she said, nodding, relieved the conversation had taken a different angle. “The thing about fashion and style is, when you know the past, you can see the future.”
Surprise shone in his eyes. “Is that so?”
“What’s in the past always comes around again is what I’ve found in all the books I’ve read. But in a way that feels new.”
“Would you mind showing me your favorite?”
Tilly understood his question wasn’t one simple question.
It was a question that didn’t only have an answer.
It was a question that led to consequences.
“All right,” she said, unable to say anything else.
The thing was, she might have a curiosity regarding those consequences.
It was no wonder Lord Rhys had been a rake.
Seducing would’ve been as easy as breathing for him.
Like she’d known he would do, he came around to her side of the table.
Consequence number one.
She flipped pages until she found her favorite illustration, and he bent over her shoulder to inspect it.
Consequence number two.
On her next inhalation, she filled her lungs with air and his scent of amber and citrus.
Consequence number three.
Oh, those consequences just kept adding up, didn’t they?
They fueled a feeling inside her—a wild, effervescent feeling…a reckless feeling.
“What is it you like about this one?” he asked, his voice low and velvet, closer than she’d expected.
A few further consequences presented themselves—consequences that led down paths one couldn’t turn back from.
On a deep breath, she settled back, putting precious inches between herself and the mouth that had asked the question.
Lord Rhys blinked.
It occurred to Tilly no woman had ever deviated from the path he led her down.
Something opaque registered behind his eyes, and he straightened before cocking his hip against the table, putting even more inches between her and his mouth.
She should feel better, steadier in her intentions.
She wasn’t sure she did.
For certain parts of her had begun to wonder what his mouth would feel like.
Certain parts of her wondered about his intentions.
But more, certain parts wondered about her own intentions.
She gave herself a good shake of the mind and forced herself to return to his question.
Something about her favorite…
Right.
She cleared her throat and pressed a finger to the illustration of the statue of Venus that was discovered on the Greek island of Milos several years ago.
Lord Rhys lifted an eyebrow, a smile tickling about his mouth. “She isn’t wearing much.”
“But it isn’t about what she is wearing, don’t you see?”
He squinted. “Hmm.”
“It’s about how every element hangs together,” she continued, fervent, determined he would, indeed, see.
“She is nude on her upper half, but look at the way her hair is pulled back into a bun, neat as a pin. If all that hair was hanging loose with her bosom to the breeze like that, she would look a right hoyden, wouldn’t she? ”
He nodded, slowly, as if understanding were, at last, sinking in.
“But the way everything fits together, no one could take her for anything but a goddess. Just look at all that power coming off her.” Tilly tapped her finger. “And that’s style.”
“Ah.” He reached out and flipped through the pages of a different book. “What about this one?”
It took her a moment to register the image he was pointing out, for her gaze had fixed on his large hand…his long, masculine fingers.
She cleared her throat in an attempt to corral her attention. “That one has a direct line to the fashion of twenty years ago. See the band below her bosom there?”
“Aye.”
“That was the Empire silhouette of dresses around the turn of the century, and here is a Greek statue wearing that same style three thousand years ago.”
There was no other way of putting it, Lord Rhys looked impressed. “You are a scholar, Miss Birdwell.”
A scholar… Blow her down.
Miss Tilly Birdwell, a scholar.
“You see,” she continued, his praise spurring her on, “the dress is itself, but how it’s worn is style. Take this one.” She pointed to an illustration in a different book. “See how the fabric drapes diagonally across the statue’s chest here?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“It leads the eye up to her neck when the hair is pulled back, revealing that elegant line there.”
“Ah.”
“And this line here?” She traced her finger along the curve of the statue’s neck.
“Yeah?”
“The right hairstyle can make it the point of focus, if a lady wants it to be.”
“This line here?” came the velvet question.
So caught up in educating Lord Rhys, she only realized how close he’d drawn when she felt the touch—a long, masculine finger tracing the exposed column of her throat.
Every sense in her body snapped to life.
Heightened, that was how she felt…aware.
Breathless and full to brimming with those champagne bubbles, she found herself swaying into that light touch of his finger leaving alive, little sparks in its wake.
Which consequence were they on now? Number four?…Five?
“Or with a curl positioned just so at the collarbone.” Her finger continued its progress. “The décolletage would be the focal point.”
In the way her finger progressed on the page, his progressed on her body, tracing along her collarbone to indent at the base of her throat—hesitating there.
This wasn’t mere breathlessness.
This was what it was to be in thrall to a man.
And it would be this man.
“Or,” she said, no longer able to recognize her own voice, such a raw-edged scrape it had become against her throat, “the lightest touch of rouge on the bottom lip.”
Until this very moment, she’d never fully comprehended the power of words.
That they could make the entire world stop spinning and go completely still.
From the corner of her eye, she detected it—movement—and his fingers were beneath her chin, light, but insistent, guiding her to face him, her head tipping back, her eyes meeting his.
She’d only met Lord Rhys Osborne, reformed rake.
But here, holding her gaze with intensity and intent, was that other Lord Rhys—the unreformed rake.
“A touch of rouge here?” asked this unreformed rake.
To illustrate his question, he pressed his thumb to her bottom lip, the calloused pad rough as it skated deliberately across that sensitive skin.
Her gaze locked onto his, she nodded.
Another of those world-gone-still moments passed, the intent within his silver-gray eyes unwavering, as he angled down and replaced his thumb with his mouth.
He sucked her bottom lip into his mouth, his tongue gliding across, languid and expert.
Oh, but weren’t his beautiful lips as soft and firm, capable and skilled, as she’d thought they would be?
A spell wove around and through her.
That was how she would explain it to herself later.
A spell.
His large hand slid to the back of her head, steadying her, as he pressed forward, deepening the kiss, his mouth firmer, more insistent, as he touched his tongue to hers.
She inhaled a gasp. It wasn’t that she didn’t know what to do, but never had she taken such pleasure from it.
She reached up, touching trembly fingertips to his cheek…
his jaw…around to the hair that curled up at the nape of his neck, those hairs soft and ticklish, as she swayed forward, her tongue tangling with his.
He groaned into her mouth, that deep, masculine utteration resonating through her, becoming one with her in all its longing and ache.
Her body understood that soul-deep groan and echoed it.
It resonated not only through her, it resonated with her.
“Oh, Miss Birdwell,” he muttered against her lips. “You’re so sweet.”
Sweet.
In her life, she’d been referred to by a multitude of words—saucy…mouthy…bold…bawd… Worse words than those, too.
But not sweet.
Yet this man looked at her—saw her—in a way she’d never been looked at or seen.
To him, she was sweet.
“Lord Rhys,” she whispered, knowing what she must do.
He angled back, just enough to meet her eyes…just enough to break the kiss. Panting and out of breath, they stared out at each other, both knowing the kiss had needed to end.
It could go no further.
Ironic, that, considering both their pasts.
But in her past, she’d never felt this—that she wanted more…that she might perish in her lonely bed tonight without it.
He angled away far enough so he could stand.
And as she’d remained sitting, her eyeline happened to be on a level with his waist and…the cockstand raging beneath his trousers.
Lawks.
It didn’t take a stretch of the imagination to understand what a fine specimen of a cockstand it was, either.
The sort of cockstand to take a gel’s breath away—and have her aching thighs squeezing together.
How could something that wasn’t new to her—kisses…raging cockstands—feel so new?
How was it she could want something so desperately that she’d never truly wanted all those years ago?
And the answer—undeniable, simple, and true—came to her.
Choice.
He might’ve started this kiss, but she’d chosen it.
It was the first time she’d ever chosen a kiss outside the parameters of a transaction—of her own free will.
And it felt good.
It felt free, in every sense of the word.
A throat cleared, and her gaze startled up.
She’d been caught staring at his fine specimen of a cockstand.
A smile perched upon his lips, his eyes asked, Got your fill?
And she suspected her eyes of responding with something like, Not hardly.
“Miss Birdwell—”
“Tilly.”
“Tilly, will you meet me on the corner of Piccadilly and St. James’s Street at eleven o’clock tomorrow night to witness my second noble deed?”
She gave a light clearing of her throat. “Aye.”
How shy her voice had gone.
“Until then…” He bent down and caught her mouth with his one last time.
And when he broke away and strode from the room, Tilly remained precisely as he’d left her—sitting forward in her chair…mouth waiting for his return.
She touched trembly fingertips to kiss-crushed lips.
This desire she’d experienced—the remnants that yet fizzed through her—it wasn’t just that it was new to her.
She’d never known it existed.
Not for women, anyway.
Desire, it had always seemed to her, was the exclusive privilege of men.
But here she was in this room, alone with a different knowledge.
And she knew something else, too.
That spell Lord Rhys Osborne—Rhys—had woven around and through her…
It yet held fast.