Chapter 9
“Three minutes,” Hugo whispered to himself.
He counted them against the rhythm of the orchestra below, each measure a precise increment of time designed to let her believe she had escaped.
Three minutes was long enough for composure to reassemble itself, and short enough that no one in the box would question a second absence.
He had not planned to touch her. The jiggling of her knee had been distracting, certainly, but he had endured far greater distractions without resorting to placing his hand on a woman’s thigh in a theater full of London’s most dedicated gossips.
The touch had been instinct. A response so immediate that by the time his rational mind caught up with his fingers, they were already stroking the warm curve of her leg through silk, and the sharp catch of her breath had sent a bolt of heat through his chest that he was still trying to extinguish.
He rose from his chair.
“If you will excuse me.” He addressed this to the back of Lord Brimsey’s head. “Lord Calverton caught my eye in the corridor earlier. I should pay my respects.”
Lord Brimsey nodded without turning. Lady Brimsey was absorbed in the performance. Lady Oldbarrow glanced at him with the penetrating assessment of a woman who trusted no one and was usually justified in that position, but she said nothing.
He found Lady Lily at the railing, her back to him, her fingers wrapped around the iron with a white-knuckled grip.
The lamplight fell across her bare shoulders and caught the seed pearls in her hair.
The night air moved through the curls at the nape of her neck, and he stood in the doorway and watched her for a moment longer than he should have.
“Return to the box, Your Grace. People will talk.”
“People are watching an opera. No one saw me leave.” He leaned his shoulder against the doorframe. “I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“I am perfectly all right.”
“You fled the box as though it were on fire.”
“I did not flee. I excused myself for fresh air.” She turned. In the lamplight, her green eyes were bright, and the flush had not left her cheeks. “You broke the rule. No touching beyond what is necessary for appearances.”
“You are correct.” He did not look away. “I broke the rule.”
“And?”
“And I should not have done it. But you were restless, and I was trying to help.”
“You cannot help me by touching me in the dark. That does not help. That is provocation.”
“Is it?” He pushed off the doorframe and stepped onto the balcony. “I know plenty of ways to help a woman relax, Lily. Not all of them involve provocation.”
“You are proving my point.”
“And you are proving mine.” Another step. “You are wound tighter than a watch spring. You have been since the night you walked into my parlor. You hold yourself so rigidly that I am surprised you do not crack.”
She scoffed. “You are such a rake.”
“I am. And you say that as though it is an insult, when all it means is that I understand pleasure.” He held her gaze. “Why is that such a terrible thing? To enjoy what the body wants?”
“Because enjoyment comes at a cost. For women, it always comes at a cost. One scandal, and everything is ruined.”
“Not if the man knows what he is doing.” His voice was quiet now, stripped of its usual lightness. “I have never ruined a woman’s reputation, Lily. Not once. I know how to give a woman what she wants without anyone knowing. Without a single consequence touching her.”
“How noble of you.” The sarcasm shook at its edges.
“It is not noble. It is respect.” He tilted his head.
“Tell me about your travels. The ruins and the coastlines and the sunsets over foreign water. Did they not open your mind? Did they not make you realize the world is larger and wilder than anything this city allows you to feel? I know you crave more, my lady.”
“What I crave is none of your business.”
Hugo closed the distance between them. She stood with her back to the railing, and he stood before her, close enough to see the details of her green irises, close enough to watch her pupils dilate in the lamplight.
“I think it is very much my business.” His voice was barely more than a breath, intimate and rough and meant for only her.
“You are a woman who craves, Lily. Who yearns. Who burns for something she has been taught her entire life to deny.” His gaze moved over her face, tracing the line of her jaw, the curve of her lips, the defiance in her eyes that was crumbling at its edges.
“And I think you deserve to have what you want. At night. In the dark. Without apology. Without shame. Without a single soul knowing but you and the man fortunate enough to give it to you.”
Her breath quivered. He watched it happen, the precise moment her composure cracked, and what lay beneath it was not anger or pride. It was want. Raw and undisguised and so fierce it stole the words from his own throat.
Her hand rose. Her fingers pressed flat against his chest, and the warmth of her palm seared through his waistcoat.
Beneath her touch, his heart kicked hard enough that she must have felt it.
Her gaze dropped to her own hand as though she could not believe it was there, spread against the hard plane of his chest, feeling his rhythm.
She leaned into him.
“I want to feel every inch of you under my hands until neither of us can breathe.” His voice was barely a whisper, rough and stripped bare. “I do not want to be a gentleman with you, Lily. I want to possess you. Entirely.”
She could only gasp in return, her fingers curling into the fabric of his waistcoat.
Then, she nodded.
That was all it took.
And Hugo kissed her.
He had kissed a hundred women. He had kissed them against walls and in carriages and in darkened gardens and in beds that smelled of perfume and champagne.
None of those kisses had felt like this.
His hand came up to cradle the back of her neck, his fingers threading into her hair, and he kissed her with everything he had been holding back since the night she walked into his parlor and shoved a piece of paper into his chest.
She tasted like champagne and rosewater and something that was only her, and when she gasped against his mouth, the sound undid him.
He deepened the kiss, and she answered it.
Her fingers curled into the fabric of his waistcoat, pulling him closer, and for a few searing, reckless seconds, she kissed him back with a ferocity that matched his own.
Then she stopped.
She wrenched away. His hand slid from her neck, and the night air rushed between them.
She stared at him. Her lips were swollen, her hair was coming loose, and her eyes held the wild, stricken look of a woman who had just betrayed every principle she held dear.
He said nothing. There was nothing to say. The kiss had happened. It was the most honest thing either of them had done since this arrangement began, and they both knew it.
She turned and walked back into the building.
He watched her go, her shoulders straight, her chin lifted, her hands trembling at her sides.
Hugo gripped the balcony railing. The iron was cold beneath his hands, and the city sprawled below him, indifferent to the fact that his life had just tilted on its axis.
He pressed his tongue against his lower lip.
Champagne and rosewater.
He stood on the balcony until his breathing steadied and the taste of her faded into something he could carry without his hands shaking. Then he straightened his waistcoat, checked his cravat, and went to find a glass of water and a convincing excuse.
When he returned to the box, Lily was in her seat, her posture rigid, her gaze fixed on the stage.
“Apologies. I ran into Lord Calverton in the gallery. The man can talk the paint off a wall.”
He sat down. He did not look at her. She did not look at him.
The opera played on. Mozart’s music filled the theater, enthusiastic, relentless, and merciless, and Hugo sat in the dark beside the woman he had just kissed and understood, with the crystalline clarity of a man who had spent his life avoiding exactly this, that he was no longer pretending.
He was not sure he ever had been.