Chapter Twenty-One
Cool night air hit Mavis’s face like a sigh as she stepped outside.
Past the row of carriages lined up in front of Benitez House, she could just make out the edge of the shoreline, and though she couldn’t hear the crashing waves over the music pouring from the ballroom upstairs, she knew it was there.
“Please tell my driver I decided to walk home so he can take the rest of the night off,” she told the doorman.
She needed a few minutes to clear her mind, and the open air always helped her do that. Besides, after spending the better part of an hour sweltering in the ballroom upstairs, the last thing she wanted to do was hole up in a stifling carriage.
She made her way down the narrow path that led to the beach, toeing off her heeled slippers just before she reached the sand and holding them in one hand while lifting the hem of her dress with the other.
She reveled in a deep breath, the fresh sea air filling her lungs. Back at the ball, she could hardly breathe at all—mostly because everyone wanted to talk about her looming wedding, but also because she couldn’t stop herself from watching Arden and Oriana fall in love.
It was exactly what she wanted—her freedom from Minstead’s contract depended on it, as did Rafe and Leif’s.
And she wanted it for Arden too: a kind wife, a secure fortune, a charmed life of luxury and privilege.
It was the very future she’d robbed him of.
But seeing him laugh with Oriana, watching as he placed his hand on the small of her back and treated her like she was something fine and delicate, was a kind of torture.
With the crashing waves and the music from the Benitezes’ ball, there was no reason Mavis should have heard the footsteps behind her, but after her youth in the Low City, she knew when she was being followed.
Irritation flared brighter than any sense of fear, and she drew in a steadying breath before whirling around to face the interloper.
It was Arden, a dozen paces behind her, hands held up in surrender as if she wielded a lethal weapon instead of a sharp tongue and a pair of heeled slippers.
“What do you want?” She crossed her arms over her chest as best she could while still holding her slippers.
Arden glanced over his shoulder, back to Benitez House, as if he regretted leaving the sweltering ballroom already.
“I wanted to make sure you were all right,” he said, turning back to her. “You looked . . . troubled.”
Had she? Surely not—she was so careful to guard her expression whenever she was around the Lusters.
“How so?”
Arden was at a loss. “I don’t know, you just . . . didn’t seem yourself.”
Mavis sighed. “Go back to the ball, Arden.” She was careful to keep her voice level and cool.
For an eon of a moment, Arden was quiet, and when he spoke, his voice was soft. “No. You aren’t all right. Was it Thaddeus? Did he do something?”
The mention of Thaddeus’s name felt like a splinter in her skin. She could almost swear she smelled his brand of cigar smoke in the air, but she pushed the thought away. She didn’t want to think about him now. All she wanted was peace.
“It’s none of your concern,” she told Arden. “I’m not in need of saving.”
She turned to walk away from him and continue to the hotel, but his harsh laugh stopped her short.
“Oh, I’m perfectly aware of that.” Mavis forced herself not to turn back, but she couldn’t make herself continue to walk away.
“I know you don’t believe it, but if I could go back five years, I would have tried to save you then.
I wouldn’t have cared if you were Lack, I wouldn’t have cared if you’d conned me—I would have walked into whatever den of sin Minstead was holed up in and given him every last sola in my account to see you free. ”
Mavis turned then, only to find he wasn’t looking at her.
His attention was out at the wild sea, at the sun hanging low over the horizon, the low and rough words spoken to the wind like they might be carried away before they reached her.
His dark-blue eyes had clouded over with something Mavis couldn’t read for once, though she desperately wanted to.
Her mouth felt dry, words failing her, but he wasn’t finished yet.
“If I could go back before that, I’d have broken your father’s hand before he could sign your life away, and he’d consider himself lucky I didn’t break more.
I’d go back even further and buy your mother the medicine she needed and whatever else to make sure she could take care of you, because when I think about the girl you were, alone in a world that no child should have to survive in, I want to burn the whole city down with everyone who ever hurt you inside. ”
She made her way back toward him, pulled by some force that went against any sense of self-preservation, as desperate for him to stop talking as she was to hear whatever he was going to say next.
When she touched his shoulder, he finally turned to look at her, the heat in his eyes no longer anger, but an echo of the spark kindling in her own belly.
“You may not need saving now, Mavis, but you deserved it then,” he said softly. “So forgive me for trying to atone for the world’s failing in whatever meager way I can.”
Words still failed Mavis, but now she didn’t need them. She moved her hand up his shoulder, following the line of his throat and strong curve of his jaw, relishing the way his eyes darkened to nearly black as her fingertips brushed over the corner of his mouth.
“Mavis . . .”
Mavis had never imagined that Arden would say her name the same way he said Arabella.
She knew better than to expect he would whisper it against her skin with the same reverence.
It would never sound like a song on his lips, a beautiful melody that only he knew—and she was right.
The way he said her true name now sounded so much better, and Mavis wanted to hear him say it again.
In that moment, words finally returned to her—dangerous words.
I love you. I’ve always loved you. I doubt I’ll ever stop.
Words she couldn’t say, so she did the only thing she could to stop them: She kissed him, and as soon as she closed that last bit of distance between them, he was devouring her, his hand anchored at her neck to drag her closer to him, angling her face so he could kiss her deeper, his teeth dragging over her bottom lip, eliciting a gasp from her.
The sound only encouraged him, and the next thing Mavis knew, he was dragging his lips along her jaw, leaving a trail of hot, open-mouthed kisses that led to the place just below her ear.
He tarried there, dragging his tongue over her skin, and Mavis clutched tighter at his shoulders, her breath hitching.
She felt his smile more than saw it, as if he was well aware that even after five years, he still knew her body better than any other lover she’d had before or after him.
A wave crashed to shore, lapping at Mavis’s ankles, soaking her hem, and dragging her back to the present moment, where she was kissing Arden Ryskamp at twilight, on a public beach not far from where one of the biggest parties of the season was carrying on.
If anyone happened to look out from the balcony at the Benitez House, they would have a perfect view of her and Arden, and that was not a scandal either of them could weather.
She pulled away with a quiet curse, placing a hand to his chest and trying to focus past the rhythm of his heart beating against her palm.
“Someone might see,” she said, surprised at how breathy her voice came out.
For the space of a few seconds, Arden didn’t move. “Is that your only hesitation?” He sounded almost as undone as Mavis felt.
Mavis looked up to find his eyes searching her face, searching for vulnerabilities she forced herself not to hide for once. There were dozens of reasons why kissing Arden was a bad idea, but in that moment, none of them felt particularly compelling.
“It’s a terrible idea” was all she could manage.
“Why? I want you, and I know you want me too.” He left room for her to deny it, but she couldn’t. “Whatever lies there were five years ago, Mavis, we were good together. Why continue to deny ourselves?”
“Oriana—” Mavis began, but Arden interrupted.
“The instant Oriana accepts my suit, I swear to every God of Old, I will never touch another woman. I owe her that at least. But until then, I’m unattached.”
“I’m not.” It was a ridiculous protest, and Arden must have thought so too because he laughed.
“You don’t owe Thaddeus any loyalty.”
It was true—he’d never promised her fidelity and was too conceited to think he needed to ask it of her. Besides, he was engaged to Delphinia Lindcourt, and standing on the beach with Arden’s lips a breath away from her own, she had never felt more like Mavis Hale.
Perhaps he was right—one tryst could wash away her wanting, her fantasies, the haunting memories that the real thing could never possibly live up to.
“Then yes, the fact that someone might see is, in fact, my only hesitation.” Her gaze dropped down to his mouth again, and she savored the slow curve of his smile.
Arden slipped his fingers through her hair and brought them to cradle the nape of her neck. She felt a slight tingle where the tips of his fingers met her skin just as he dropped his mouth to her ear. “May I?”
It took a moment for Mavis to understand what he was asking permission for, but then she nodded.
The tingling spread over her skin until it covered her from head to toe, and though Mavis still saw her own body when she looked down, she knew that to the rest of the world, they were no longer visible.
“I forgot just how convenient your magic could be under the right circumstances,” Mavis murmured, twining her arms around Arden’s neck.