Chapter 9 #2
Her eyes fluttered open. She didn’t jerk in shock. She didn’t shout and demand he put her down. She looked dazed, as though this were a dream.
“The Gentleman of Fleet Street,” she mused.
He was no gentleman. He was getting his fill.
“Even a devil would give you the bed, Miss Vane.”
“True. Your fingers are perilously close to my bottom, Mr Stanton.”
And the other hand an inch from her breast.
“You’re remarkably calm for a woman who’s run away from home and ruined her prospects.”
“Panic seems pointless. In your arms, it’s hard to feel anything but relief.”
Dangerous answer.
He nudged the bedroom door open with his foot and carried her inside before she could say anything else likely to shorten his life.
She inhaled as though she stood in a spice market in Marrakesh. “If I sleep here, there’s a chance I’ll wake smelling of you.”
“You don’t want to wake smelling of me.” Yet he imagined all the ways he might leave his mark. “People will pelt you with rotten fruit in the street.”
She laughed. “Liars and deceivers, perhaps. Not those you feed at the refuge.”
“You think too highly of me, Miss Vane.”
“No. I think you work very hard to make people think poorly of you. For a man of truth, you’ve invented a terrible lie. One must wonder why.”
The comment struck a place he kept boarded shut.
“And now you’re rescuing damsels,” she said.
“I’m helping a friend in need.”
Who was he fooling?
She breathed that bit deeper. “And I’m grateful. Charlotte said you’ve been a good friend to her, as you are to me.”
There was a vast distinction.
He didn’t want to kiss Charlotte or pull back the coverlet and follow her down onto the bed. He didn’t want to pin her hands above her head and thrust slowly into her while she gasped his name.
He set her down before the lines between fantasy and reality blurred. Before he found a reason to lose himself in her.
“I thought we might travel to Long Ditton tomorrow,” he said, stepping back. “Visit the address Bellingham gave you.”
They could visit Shadowmere and spend the night there. Far from town, where he could place an entire wing between them.
“Yes. I could write on the way.”
“Write?”
“An article to earn my first guinea.”
So she wasn’t playing at rebellion. She meant to build a life beyond Soho Square. Her sister would use every weapon at her disposal to drag her back. A stay at Shadowmere would only delay the inevitable.
“You don’t need to work, not until this business is behind us and you’ve found a respectable place to live.”
“Respectable?” Her gaze drifted to his bed, then the burgundy silk robe draped over the oak frame. “I think I’m beyond salvation, don’t you?”
“No one knows you’re here. We’ll keep it that way.”
“You don’t need to protect me.”
“Isn’t that why you hid on the landing? So I could play matchmaker and prove Howden was a man you could trust?”
She hugged herself, rubbing her upper arms as though the name had given her a chill. “And now I don’t care if he is. You’ve helped me to see we’re far from suited.”
He took his robe, shook it out and draped it over her shoulders. “No. You allowed grief to cloud your judgement. You’re not the woman you pretend to be.”
Her smile reached her eyes and slipped past his guard. “As you seem to be such an excellent judge of character, who am I if not a compositor’s apprentice?”
“Not a highwayman from the heath.”
“Nor a pirate in a tricorn either.”
“No, you’re every bit a woman, Miss Vane, and a dull marriage would bore you senseless.”
She drew his robe around her, her breath coming that much quicker. “That depends on your definition of dull.”
Was she throwing down a gauntlet?
Wanting him to prove her right?
“Have you ever kissed cold lips?”
“I’ve only ever kissed yours.”
“Then if memory serves, you crave heat.” The fire she’d lit in him still burned. Never more so than now, in this dark room with her wearing his robe beside his bed.
He should empty the pitcher of water over his head and retreat. But she had a talent for striking sparks near open powder.
“Surely every kiss is the same.”
He laughed, the sound deep and throaty, and wondered if she knew why. “You think Howden would kiss you like I did?”
“He might if he meant to silence me beneath a pew.”
“Perhaps you need an education in the dangers of provoking a man in a dim chamber. I don’t kiss like Howden, and you damn well know it.”
Her gaze fell to his mouth. “Can I help if it slipped my mind?”
“Slipped your mind?” He laughed as he stepped closer. “You’re brazen enough to draw a pistol. Why don’t you just say what you mean?”
“That you’re over-reacting and one kiss is the same as another? As a man, doubtless you feel you have something to prove.”
His hand was on her waist before he realised. “No. That you want me to demonstrate the difference.”
Her chest rose, drawing his eye to the creamy swell of her breasts, the place he was trying to avoid. “Fine. Show me what I might expect from a convenient marriage to Lord Howden.”
His pulse thumped hard in his throat. “You want me to kiss you, Miss Vane?”
“In the name of journalistic curiosity, yes. One must consider every side of a story before deciding on the facts.”
He smiled to himself. Framed like that, he could play this game. “Then let’s pretend I’m the illustrious Lord Howden come to say goodnight.”
“And this marriage is sensible, affectionate, and entirely without passion.”
He stepped out of the room and tried to imagine his blood was lukewarm, that he cared more about the next race at Cheltenham than the sensual mouth of the woman in his chamber.
A laugh escaped her when he returned.
“Don’t wear my robe, darling. You’ll leave it smelling of that cloying perfume.” He drew the garment off her shoulders and tossed it onto the bed. “I know we said we’d dine together tomorrow night, but Bertie invited me to take supper at the club.”
The light in her eyes faded, but she embraced the role of the neglected Lady Howden. “Of course. I might eat in the nursery. Little Martha has come down with a fever.”
“Has she? Poor thing. I’m sure Nanny can cope.”
He didn’t step close but leant in for the kiss: one peck on the lips accompanied by a light squeeze of her hand.
He turned for the door, stopping briefly. “Oh, if I don’t come home, it means Bertie is sotted, and I’ve spent the night in Jermyn Street. You know how he gets.”
He left the room.
Long enough for the silence to prove its point.
He raked a hand through his hair and burst back in, breathless.
She jerked. “You’re home.”
“I raced through thunder and rain to get here. I’ll not spend a night away from your bed.”