Chapter 2 #3
The little mouse in his arms stiffened.
“Your glamours, Polly…” Lissy was hesitant to say something. “None of them seem to be working right.”
“It takes time,” Polly roared. Silence, then, softer, “You know the talent is unreliable in the first month or two after it’s transferred. A fellow can’t practice the talent until he has it. That’s all this is.”
“As you say, Polly.”
“Think he’s downed the entire bottle?” Temple mumbled, his mouth still close to the lady’s ear.
His teeth close to her earlobe. He could give it a little nip, a little tug to see what kind of noise she’d make.
When she didn’t answer (not that he wanted an answer), he said, “What’s your name, darling?
” his thumb was stroking her neck. He liked holding her close.
She jabbed him in the ribs.
And he liked it.
Didn’t want to like it. Fake. All of this desire coursing through him entirely fake. Like the ton, like the illusions they mastered. Didn’t seem to matter. He wanted to make the brazen little mouse in his arms purr with pleasure.
He nuzzled her neck.
She swatted him away, her scowl more potent than her swing.
“Lissy,” the man on the other side of the curtain said, “I want you. I’ve never wanted you so much as I do now.”
“What? Here? Now?” Lissy seemed pleased, her voice rolling and languid.
“Yes. I’m ravenous for you.”
The sounds of kissing. Wet smacks and grunts and clashing teeth. Moans and pleas and—oh. Damn. That kind of echoing smack usually resulted in a lasting hand imprint on someone’s backside.
The woman in Temple’s arms dropped her forehead against his chest with a groan.
“Is that him?” he whispered in her ear.
A tiny nod against his chest.
Poor little nameless mouse. Her elixir was working but with the wrong woman.
And she had to listen. Temple peeked through a slim parting in the curtains.
Polly had Lissy bent over the back of a couch.
Her skirts had been tossed above her waist, and his pants dropped to his ankles.
Polly was tall and lean with thick dark hair and a rather pale arse.
“You’re not missing much,” he whispered.
Clutched to Temple’s chest still, his mouse groaned again and twisted toward the part in the curtains.
“Don’t look. You don’t want to see him this way. It’s not him. It’s the elixir. Makes beasts of even the most well-intentioned men. He wouldn’t be doing it otherwise.” A bloody lie, that. The man had tumbled into this room with another woman in his arms before the elixir had even passed his lips.
She huffed. It would have been a snort if she’d been able to give it volume.
Then Lissy cried out and so did Polly, and it seemed not even a love elixir could improve a man’s stamina. At least he’d done well by the woman before losing control. Unless the lady was pretending pleasure to be done with the tryst.
Lissy stood upright immediately, her skirts falling to her ankles. “There’ll be less of that once you’re wed.” She tapped Polly’s nose.
“There’ll be more of it,” he sneered. “For me and you.” He shivered.
“I have no desire to bed my cousin. God, she’s like a sister, but I promised my damned grandfather on his deathbed.
Can’t get out of it now. Doesn’t feel right to go back on my word.
Don’t worry, Lissy. A wife won’t get in the way of our pleasure.
I’d rather marry you. You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.
I’d rather my cousin fall into the Thames than abandon you. ”
“She’d drown.”
Polly seemed to struggle with that a moment, then he shrugged.
“She could get run over by a horse or carriage,” the woman said.
“Or fall down a flight of stairs,” Polly offered. “There’s a thousand and one ways to freedom. As long as you are beside me, I don’t care what happens to her.” Polly stared at his mistress, still a bit tilted and drunk-eyed. Then he kissed her temple and ushered her out of the room.
Silence.
The little woman in his arms exploded away from him, leaving their hideaway and flying for the door. She stood rigid, glaring at it, her hands fisted as if she meant to strike it. As if she meant to strike the man who’d just disappeared through it. “It worked.”
Temple joined her, scratching the back of his neck, trying to rub away the feeling of her neck still tingling in the pads of his fingertips. “What worked?”
She swung around, grinning brightly. “It worked!”
He couldn’t help it. He grinned back. “Congratulations?”
She danced across the room and threw herself onto the couch, her arms falling wide in an attitude of utter relief. “I cannot believe it worked!”
He stood above her, unable to look away from the smile stretching out her lovely lips. It could outshine the stars. “I hope you do not mind me asking—again—but I must. What worked?”
She sat upright, biting her bottom lip. “He seemed enamored of her, didn’t he? He said he wanted to marry her.”
“Yes. And rather concerningly occupied with ways you might die.”
“That is distressing, but… it worked. The potion worked!”
Temple stepped gingerly toward her, choosing his words carefully as his steps.
“But don’t fret about it. It was the elixir.
It’s powerful stuff. If he’s meant to be yours, he still can be.
” Temple would rather throw Polly off St. Paul’s than let him have this woman.
She was bold and bright and ran after what she wanted, even if it was—he tugged his cravat—illegal.
Shouldn’t like that. But she reminded him of iron—the simplest of elements, his element.
Strong yet malleable. Magnetic. Necessary.
She was prickly now, but could she become, like the lump of old iron in his pocket, smooth with care and attention?
He would like to find out.
Or not. Could be the elixir talking. Probably was.
Yet… Right beneath the jealous possessiveness was something broader and stronger than that. He simply… didn’t want her… unhappy. She was risking so much to get what she wanted. She deserved to have it. Those who worked hard and with passion deserved victory.
“I’m not fretting,” she said. “It’s marvelous. He’s… Oh, it does not matter who he is. Only that he’s distracted. And he’s that, yes? Clearly distracted?”
She wanted reassurance, and he wanted to give it to her. “Clearly. Do me a favor?”
She tilted her head.
“Tell me who he is to you.” When she looked away from him, he sat beside her. “It’s a secret? I can figure out who you are quick enough. I know your face. I know part of his name, and you owe me. The elixir, remember.”
“I told you not to drink it.”
“True.”
She exhaled, a clear yet frustrated capitulation. “He’s my betrothed.”
The cousin like a sister the man had mentioned, the deathbed promise. “You don’t want him to be, though.” Silence his only answer, so he said, “Do you have to marry him?”
“I suppose so.” A grumble as she crossed her arms over her chest. “I do not have many options. At least now I know I can use the elixir to keep him from my bed.”
So that’s what she meant by distraction. “Options. They’re scarce for me, too. I have a proposition for you”—he unfolded her arms and held her hands in his—“Don’t marry Fish Cock.”
She grunted, a poor attempt to hide a laugh.
Surely it was the elixir, those few drops running thick and heady through his veins, that put him on his knees before her, that squeezed her small hands and looked into her amused face.
Surely it was the elixir that put the notion in his mind and set it wicked at the tip of his tongue.
Surely it was those few miniscule drops of elixir.
But it damn sure felt like him when he said, “Marry me, darling. I promise you won’t have to trick me out of your bed. I promise you won’t even want to.”