Chapter Nine
Sealed with a kiss took on a whole new meaning as Alistair claimed her mouth, his hand warm and competent against the base of her neck, his fingers anchored in the depths of her hair as if they had been there before, as if they belonged there.
Her mouth was no better. It opened to his as if it, too, had travelled this path before, had known his kiss before and was eager to know it again.
His tongue was a slow tease against her lips, inviting her to play along, to join the game.
And she did, letting her tongue taste the rich lingering tannins of supper’s wine on his.
There was no haste in this kiss. It was a languorous temptation, a tantalus that drew her in a slow, deepening exploration, mouths growing more insistent until it was difficult to remember this was a game played for the benefit of an audience.
A discreet cough was a reminder that in this case the audience was her father.
It was a rather dousing reminder as they sprang apart.
Ismay wiped a hand across her lips and shyly met her father’s eyes—a ridiculous response given that she was a grown woman of twenty-eight, and perhaps a testament to how private the moment had become, even though it had been intended for public consumption.
‘My apologies. I see you found her,’ her father began, but Ismay thought she detected a smile struggling to be repressed.
She exchanged a little glance with Alistair.
The moment had pleased her father despite whatever scold he might put up for form’s sake.
‘I wanted to make sure Ismay was all right and to fetch you both before your extended absence was noted. You are an engaged couple, of course, so no one actually minds. It’s just the point of appearances.
’ He took a step backwards. ‘I’ll give you a moment, and then I’ll see you inside. The intermission will be over soon.’
Ismay smoothed her skirts, wishing her reaction would smooth as easily.
‘I think my father was pleased. Our new strategy is already working.’ She hoped she exuded cool objectivity and what should be the obvious understanding that the kiss had been an act, that it in no way had sent her pulse to skittering, or her body to craving more, or the heat of his mouth against hers to burning images in her mind of what it would be like to feel his mouth elsewhere on her.
But that was not the purpose of the kiss.
It was not an invitation to seduction. It was an illusion, nothing more.
She didn’t want it to be more. This was Alistair, a prankster who’d become a rakehell, the man who’d been gifted her father’s company—something she’d always viewed as her birthright.
Alistair was the enemy, even if they were working together to end the engagement.
It was certainly a new way to look at the phrase about keeping your enemies closer than your friends.
‘Good. We have no time to lose, not with the engagement party looming.’ Alistair reached out a hand, and for a moment she imagined he meant to touch her cheek, a soft caress of fingertips on skin, a gesture made without the need to perform for others.
Instead, his fingers drew a ringlet forward, pulling it loose from its pins.
‘That’s better. Now people will wonder what you’ve been out in the dark doing, and one look at your lips will confirm it.
’ He gave a wicked smile. ‘Which is exactly what we want.’
She touched her fingers to her mouth, suddenly self-conscious.
Of course. That explained everything. He’d wanted her to look well-kissed.
Not just for her father’s sake but for the larger public.
He’d been in control the whole time, while her own control had forgotten itself in the wake of enjoying Alistair’s efforts.
This time, she had the excuse of being taken by surprise.
But she would have to be careful next time. Assuming there was a next time.
‘What about yourself? Should we muss you a little, too?’ She reached up to run her hands through his hair. ‘That’s better. Just a hint of mess so that everyone knows whatever we got up to, it was mutual.’
‘Well, it was.’ Alistair winked. ‘You’re a very good kisser, Ismay.
’ He offered his arm. ‘Shall we go in and let them see us in our less-perfect, postkiss forms?’ He gave an easy laugh that she envied.
He was nowhere as affected by the kiss as she was.
Then again, he’d probably had a lot more practice at it.
‘I must say, I definitely like this iteration of the ruse much better than the earlier one. So do my trousers.’
‘Your trousers?’ Of their own accord, her eyes couldn’t help but glance that direction, more specifically in the direction of his hips and that place no decently bred young woman was supposed to look on a man.
Alistair caught her gaze, and she felt her cheeks heat. Traitorous eyes. Damn it. What had she been thinking to look there? ‘Because of the wine.’ He grinned, giving her nowhere to hide from her indiscretion. ‘In this variation, I assume there will be no more tossing red wine on my trousers.’
‘And I assume there will be no more stomping on my delicate slippers.’
‘Our clothes should be safe enough,’ he drawled at her ear as they re-entered the drawing room and made their way back to their seats.
It wasn’t her clothes she was worried about.
It was her other sensibilities that might be in jeopardy.
That kiss had been far too delightful, and there would likely be more to come if tonight’s gambit had been his idea of convincing people they were a love match about to run amok.
As the Italian soprano took the stage once more and opened the second half of the performance with a love song, Alistair reached for her hand where it lay in her lap for all to see and didn’t let go until the very last note of the performance faded away. Too bad it wasn’t real.
* * *
The kiss simply wouldn’t fade. Alistair leaned on the balustrade of his balcony, staring at the distant bay limned in moonlight, at the dark shadow of the mountain beyond, wanting to shake the tremors of that kiss and finding he couldn’t.
The kiss had begun as a brilliant strategy, but like most tremors, these had come with aftershocks.
Perhaps because there’d been more than strategy behind it.
In the heat of a moment ripe with disclosures and vulnerability, he’d wanted to show her that not all men failed, that she had not failed simply because Edward Ashford had.
Only the weakest of men pawned off their failures on others.
Only the most self-serving of men feigned emotion they didn’t feel to manipulate the emotions of a young girl.
The real issue was why he’d felt compelled to make those arguments in the first place.
The convenient answer was that he’d wanted to stand up for men, to prove her wrong, as was the point of most of their arguments.
The more inconvenient answer, though, was that he’d not done it for himself.
He’d done it for her. To show her she was desirable, that she was worth more than the meagre sum of Edward Ashford’s regard.
Not that she’d appreciate knowing any of that.
She’d call it pity because that was easier. But it was closer to kindness.
Until it hadn’t been. At some point the kiss had stopped being about strategy, about kindness, and it had become a slow, heated exploration of mouths, of closeness between two people discovering each other in new ways.
The kiss had not been required to deepen in order to prove its point to her father, and yet it had—out of choice, not obligation.
Alistair did not think the momentary flustering in Ismay’s gaze had been entirely play-acting. His certainly hadn’t been.
Here, alone in the darkness, he could admit he’d liked kissing Ismay.
More than that, he’d liked Ismay kissing him back.
She’d been an active participant in their kiss, her tongue in his mouth, her tongue tracing him, tasting him, her teeth delicately nipping at his lower lip.
He liked active participants. For the sake of the ruse, though, he ought to like such activity a little less.
Too much participation could skew the ruse, cloud their goal.
If they should fail, they’d be sentenced to marriage, and marriage needed more than active kisses in order to be a success.
Too much more, which was why Alistair had made a habit of avoiding it.
Marriage was keeping to one person forever, which seemed impossible to him, although his father and his mother had managed it, as had his aunt and his uncle the duke.
Not only impossible, but improbable as well.
What were the odds that one person would grow and change over the years as you grew and changed?
What were the odds that one person could keep another happy for fifty years?
At that range, it seemed failure was more likely than not.
Fifty years was longer than he’d currently been alive.
He supposed part of him felt that the longer he delayed in marriage, the fewer years he’d have to serve in it.
That made it sound like a prison sentence, as did Ismay’s talk of sacrifice.
No, thank you. He’d not been with anyone for more than three months at a time, which just happened to be the length of his time in Town.
The end of the Season was a convenient excuse to bring things to a close.
Alistair sighed, wishing he’d had the forethought to bring the whiskey out with him—thinking whiskey, as his father would call it.
He’d have to be careful with the kisses so he wouldn’t be momentarily seduced by his own strategy.
Ismay would have the last laugh if that was the case.
He glanced down the length of wall separating his balcony from hers, half expecting to see her leaning against her railing, contemplating her own revelations from the evening, but her balcony remained dark and empty.
He imagined her inside then, head bent over sheets of paper, writing, books strewn on her bed, perhaps losing herself in her work as a means of coping with the kiss.
He did recognise how arrogant that might sound, as if his kiss could upend someone’s world, but he had seen the look on her face, and he had felt her mouth on his. There was no way she’d been unaffected.
The question was, what to do now? Kisses would be an occupational hazard going forward, but there had to be more between them than kisses if this new ruse was going to succeed.
Happily affianced couples spent time together.
For him and Ismay, though, that time had to support the premise that they would be wilder together than they’d ever been apart.
He had an idea. Alistair smiled in the darkness, feeling as if equilibrium had been restored.
* * *
Alistair balanced a sfogliatella atop his eggs and sausage as he made his way to the table.
Breakfast at the Roses’ was as eccentric as they were, the sideboard brimming with a mishmash of cultures and traditions, the Neapolitan love of a flaky sweet roll in the morning paired with the largesse of an English breakfast from years past, before it had become more fashionable to take a smaller morning meal.
‘I was thinking,’ he said to Thomas Rose, taking the chair nearest Ismay for best effect, ‘that I have not had a chance to see Naples yet aside from what you and I have passed on the way to the warehouse. I was hoping you might be able to spare me today so that Ismay could take me around.’
Ismay’s mother was quick to support the idea. ‘What a splendid plan. Ismay, you can show Alistair the house off Piazza Vittoria. Thom, I am sure you can spare him.’
Alistair reached for Ismay’s hand, making an affectionate show as he brought it to his lips with a smile. ‘That’s settled, then. Will you mind, my dear, being saddled with me for the entire day?’