3. Part III #2
His mouth explored hers with feather like softness that gradually deepened as they sank into each other, her palms flattening against his chest, his hand squeezing the nape of her neck. All other thoughts, sights, and sounds vanished, leaving only the kiss. Leaving only him.
When he finally raised his head, she wasn’t embarrassed to say that she gave a tiny whimper.
Not when she saw the glazed, half-wild look in his eye, so very different from the perfect, polished mask he’d been wearing from sunrise to sunset.
And felt a distinctly feminine stirring of smugness to have been the one to place such a look upon his countenance.
“Persephone,” he said, his voice grit wrapped in velvet.
“Yes?” she asked, drawing on a bottom lip that still tasted like him.
“Your weasel is staring at us.”
Persephone whirled around to find that Mr. Roundtop was, indeed, looking at them.
Or perhaps glaring would be a better description.
Sitting upright with his nose in the air and his little front feet curled inward, his tiny black eyes were pinned right on them despite the fact that hedgehogs were renowned for their terrible eyesight.
From this distance, she was likely nothing more than a blur.
A blur of betrayal that had just gone willingly into another man’s arms, leaving her poor, defenseless pet to fend for himself on the forest floor.
“Mr. Roundtop! Mr. Roundtop, I’m terribly sorry.
” Rushing over, she used her skirts to carefully lift him and place him back in her pocket where he promptly curled into a ball of spiky bitterness.
Leaving him to sulk (a bit of pie would have him right as rain in no time), she returned her attention to the Earl of Ashford, who was gazing at her with a combination of incredulity, amusement, and some other emotion she couldn’t quite decipher.
“Dare I ask where you found the weasel?” he said, his head tilting.
“Hedgehog,” she corrected automatically.
“He was abandoned in the garden with a hurt leg. I took him in and nursed him back to health. He is a very loyal pet, and travels with me everywhere.” A belated thought occurred, so important that she could have kicked herself for not thinking it earlier.
“If we marry, I would not leave him behind. We’d come as a package, or not at all. ”
The glint of amusement intensified. “I’d never dare suggest otherwise. Do you have any other…ah…pets that I should know about?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Just Mr. Roundtop.”
“Mr. Roundtop.” Alec’s gaze flicked upward for a moment, and she could tell by the quick twitches in the corners of his lips that he was struggling mightily not to laugh.
“No doubt a fine name for a very fine fellow.” He extended his arm, the fingers that had burned at the base of her neck curled innocently inward as his mouth, the same mouth that had nearly brought her to her knees, curled upward into an innocuous grin.
“Can I escort you back to the manor before our disappearance causes a stir?”
Persephone absently patted her pocket where Mr. Roundtop still grumbled as she studied the Earl of Ashburn.
To look at him, one would never imagine that just a few seconds ago he’d been involved into a passionate tryst with the fiancée he’d never bothered to visit until four days ago.
If there was one thing she’d learned about him, it was that he was an expert at concealing his emotions.
But why? And to what purpose? What had happened in his life that made him want to hide what he felt behind a carefully curated mask of civil stoicism?
And when she did manage to finally pry that mask off his handsome countenance, what would she discover underneath?
She supposed there was only one way to find out.
“Yes,” she said, placing her hand on his forearm. “You can.”
***
Alec hadn’t intended to kiss her. A mistake, he acknowledged, that had come with a litany of unintended consequences.
First and foremost, now he knew what she tasted like.
Autumn sunshine and cinnamon.
He knew what her skin felt like.
What her hair smelled like.
He knew the breathy little mewl she made deep in her throat when she experienced pleasure.
But more than that, worse than that, he knew that he was beginning to like her.
No, he corrected, scowling irritably into his glass of brandy. He was beginning, against all plan and common sense, to love her.
It was that damned weasel. Or hedgehog. Whatever the hell it was.
Had she not taken it for a walk that morning, and had he not followed her, he never would have kissed her.
And had he never kissed her, he wouldn’t have memorized the shape of her lips under his and been silently yearning, every second since, to trace that shape again.
Persephone was sweet, kind, amusing, and intelligent.
She didn’t make a fuss over her appearance, or pretend, even for a moment, to be anyone other than who she was.
She was… she was genuine. In a world of men and women who only got close to him for the want of something, the only thing she wanted was for him to be who he was.
Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, he’d forgotten what that person looked like.
He’d spent so long in the shadow of his father that he’d forgotten how warm the sun was…
until he’d met Persephone. But loving her wasn’t why he’d come here.
She was meant to fall for him, not the other way around.
To fall so quickly and blindly that she would agree to come to London for a quick wedding and be back in the countryside before she knew what had happened.
Now he was the one that didn’t know what was happening.
And it was… well, it was bloody unnerving.
“There you are! I’ve been looking everywhere.
” Persephone’s smile lit up the library as she swept in holding a chamberstick in one hand and a rectangular box in the other.
Setting the candle on a round table where it momentarily sputtered before surging back to life, she sank to her knees on the woven wool rug and beckoned for him to join her.
“You want me to sit on the floor?” he said dubiously.
“How else are you going to play?” Removing the top from the box, she carefully lifted out a foldable board.
When opened and pressed flat, it revealed a series of oval spaces, some blank, some with writing on them, painted in a spiral pattern that ended in the middle of the board with a large square depicting dancing couples and the words ‘The Mansion of Happiness’. “Here, you can hold the teetotum.”
Alec stared at the ivory spinning dice piece she plopped into his hand, then back at the board. For once, he didn’t bother trying to hide his scowl. “I’m not playing that.”
“Yes, you are. I’ll even let you go first. This is me”–she pointed to a small white figurine she’d placed on the very first oval space at the outside corner of the board–“and that is you.” Fittingly, Alec’s piece was black.
“We take turns spinning the teetotum and have to move the number of spaces it says. If you get a good space, you can continue on. If you get a bad space, you have to go back two spots.” She pursed her lips.
“It really would be better if you sit on the floor.”
Alec opened his mouth to argue, but then he made the mistake at looking into her eyes. Her gorgeous, luminous, sparkling brown eyes. And that was how the mighty Earl of Ashburn found himself sitting on the floor in the library playing a game.
“I don’t see why gambling is a bad space,” he said irritably some time later, squinting at the oval he’d landed on and then glaring up at Persephone. “When done correctly, it is both an entertaining and lucrative hobby.”
She smiled sweetly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t make the rules. Mr. George Fox did. This is his game, dedicated to the Duchess of York. Perhaps you’d best bring it up with him. Until then, gambling is a vice, and you have to move backwards two spaces.”
“You’re not sorry at all,” he said, narrowing his eyes at her as he dragged his piece back the allotted number of spaces. “You’re winning by eight.”
“Am I?” she said cheerfully. “I hadn’t counted.”
Devilish minx, he thought silently, a reluctant grin tugging at the edges of his mouth.
With her hair swept into a spinsterish bun and plain, unassuming attire, she hardly looked the part of a card sharp.
And yet if the way this game was going was any indication, that’s exactly what she was.
A card sharp with the face of an angel and the heart of a gambler…
with a hedgehog in her pocket. Was it any wonder that she had brought him, quite literally, to his knees?
He’d never met anyone like her. Nor, he realized with some surprise, did he want to continue searching.
Not for a one-night liaison. Not for a mistress.
Any natural cravings of the flesh he might have had for an emotionless, physical entanglement were gone.
And sitting in front of him was Persephone.
Lovely, amusing, card sharp Persephone.
“Oh, look!” she said, clapping her hands together. “I’ve landed on prosperity. Advance two spaces!”
Odd, Alec mused. He’d just been thinking the same thing.
What was a townhouse and a country manor and a chest full of gold even worth if he had no one to share it with?
His parent’s marriage had been filled with bitterness and vitriol; hardly something to aspire toward, and so he hadn’t.
Better to be alone than miserable. Better never to have children than be cruel to the one he did have.
But the more time he spent with Persephone, the more he was forced to confront what he’d been ignoring: that he was both alone and miserable.