12. A Shadowed Corner of the Modiste’s Back Room
A SHADOWED CORNER OF THE MODISTE’S BACK ROOM
Truly, it wasn’t Bran’s fault Guin had lusted after one man while married to another.
But it was his fault that he was both men, and Guin was not in a magnanimous enough mood to let that go.
Not today. Likely not ever. When he met her a half hour later at a waiting carriage, his glamour was fully in place, and she did not ask if that was purposeful.
She hoped it slipped and humiliated him later.
But even if it did, no one would dare laugh at the man beneath the glamour.
As always, he exuded power, a sleek confidence no one ever questioned.
Right now, though, he was exquisitely uncomfortable.
He sat across from her in the carriage as it rattled toward Bond Street, every muscle of his body focused on her, and though she could not see his expression through the glamour, she could guess it was something like the helpless puppy eyes he’d had in the conservatory.
He was at her command. Unless she ordered him to do something that would make her unsafe, then he would grumble and growl and likely toss her over his shoulder to take her somewhere safer, and she should not get tingly between her legs at the prospect.
She turned toward the window. She would utter not a single word to him. Let him sit there in exquisite sexual frustration.
“How did the glamour get stuck?” she asked, unable to help herself.
“The night of the fire. I was in the shop, trying to get out, and a beam fell, pinning me. I can only guess the heat and the fumes from the potions did something. I don’t know exactly what.” His voice was strained, tight.
“How did you escape?”
He shrugged.
“Tell me.”
His head fell back against the squabs as his legs spread wider. “Apollo Chester. He stopped the fire, then I escaped. When I encountered you in front of the shop, the glamour was already stuck.”
She blinked away tears. That night had been a torment. “I thought you dead.” She knew she sounded small and wavery, and she hated herself for it, but Bran shifted so he was right across from her, leaned forward with his forearms resting on his thighs.
“I know,” he said. “I didn’t mean—”
“But you did!” she snapped. “You could have told me at any time you weren’t dead. But you didn’t. Because it would have revealed your lie.” She pressed the heel of her hand into one eye and fireworks exploded in the darkness.
“Guin,” he said, voice dark and low, “I’m going to cross over to you, and I’m going to lift you into my lap, and I’m going to—”
“No.”
“Fuck.”
No because she wanted exactly what he was offering. It seemed a basic need like air or water, but unlike those, she couldn’t trust it to actually sustain her. He could disappear, become someone else, die.
“I’m dying, Guin.”
She threw her head back and laughed, loud and long and without an ounce of mirth, and when she opened her eyes, she found him leaning back against the squabs again, legs spread wide as he squeezed what she assumed was his engorged member beneath the glamour.
She wanted to see. Damn her curiosity, but she needed to see.
She pulled the shade over one window then the other, casting them in semidarkness, and his glamour began to flicker.
The face dissolved first. Those glamours with the most detail were airy, thin, and fragile, and always dissipated with little encouragement.
The intricate snowy-white cravat went next, revealing a simpler knot of black-stained linen.
Then the blue waistcoat dissolved to black, leaving the simple elegance of the duke’s arms and legs.
Then those went, too, and she could see the whole of Bran—a muscled brute dressed in black. A beautiful, deadly, liar.
Eyes closed and lashes fanned dark across high cheekbones. The scar down one cheek, through one brow. The black hair, thick and disheveled. His large hand, an instrument of violence, clutched around his cock, the head of which rose, just barely, above the waist of his trousers.
When his eyes fluttered open, he caught her watching, cursed and sat upright with a groan.
“Oh the things a man can do behind a glamour,” she said, sounding breathless.
“Oh the things a man can do if only you’ll let him.”
There was something wrong with her. There must be. Because despite everything, she found that invitation terribly tempting.
Thank Gaia the carriage stopped and a footman opened the door.
She stood and paused, holding Bran’s gaze before stepping outside. “You do not touch yourself unless I say so.”
His eyes gleamed in the shadows. “Will you say so?”
“We’ll see.”
The modiste, Mrs. Bennington, was Guin’s usual, and was glad to see her returned.
“Lady Guinevere! I had begun to worry!” she called out almost as soon as they entered.
She approached with a wide grin, pushing through a disinterested crowd of shoppers.
“What can I do for you today, Lady Guinevere and…?” Her smile fell as she looked at Bran, whose glamour was now fully in place.
“I need a ball gown.” Guin gestured to Bran. “My husband, the Duke of Braxton, and I are to attend the Morington affair at the queen’s behest.”
“Husband!” Mrs. Bennington’s mouth dropped open. “B-b-but… Him? You’re a duchess?”
“I’m afraid I am, and I have been for some time.”
“I knew it! All the girls here know I knew it.” She yelled out across the shop, “A duchess, Miriam, didn’t I tell you she was titled! That lady isn’t just pretending! Never was! My, my, my.” She turned back to Guin and hopped to her feet. “A ball gown you say?”
“Yes. And perhaps one or two more gowns for daytime calling hours.”
“Of course!” Mrs. Bennington bustled across the shop, gathering materials as she went. “Oh, Lady Guinevere, I was so despondent to hear about your shop, then you disappeared! And we were all right sad to hear about Mr. Bran. It was quite a loss, and you have my deepest condolences.”
“Yes, well,” Guin mumbled. “Thank you.”
Mrs. Bennington led them into a private back room, unloading her arms onto the table there, then she clapped. “I always knew you were a high one, Lady G—oh, apologies, Your Grace. I suppose I should call you Lady Braxton now.”
“Lady G is fine. I prefer it.”
Mrs. Bennington smoothed her skirts. “Yes, well, Miriam thought there was a spark of some sort between you and”—she hid her mouth behind her hand and whispered—“Bran, but I always maintained you were destined for more than a brute of a guard.” She stuck her head out the door and yelled, “Didn’t I say that, Miriam?
That Mr. Bran wasn’t good enough for our Lady G? ”
“Yes, Mrs. Bennington.”
“See, it’s just so. Now, hop onto the box and let me measure you.”
Guin did as she was bade, and Bran seemed to be folding in on himself, not that Guin cared for his discomfort.
He leaned against the back wall, across from the door, the only other entrance to the room, a window high above his head.
He’d picked the darkest part of the room where little light spread across the walls and floor, and he seemed to make it darker, gathering the shadows so that all the light focused in the center where Guin and Mrs. Bennington stood before a mirror, and all the darkness draped over him like a heavy cloak.
In the shadows, his glamour melted away once more.
The longing scored into every line of his face as he watched almost stopped her heart, made her hot and achy between her legs.
Perhaps the love potion had been a terrible idea, as much a torment for her as for him.
Yet, every now and then, he shifted from one foot to the other as if uncomfortable, and when he did, his lips twitched with irritation, a little pain. He was still hard and suffering. For her.
Good.
With Mrs. Bennington’s help, Guin began to undress, swiftly, practical as always under such circumstances.
But this time her skin tingled. She had an audience.
Before, he’d always remained on the other side of the door.
Mrs. Bennington threw Bran a glance, clearly curious about why he’d followed Guin into so intimate a setting.
Her curiosity wasn’t deep enough to actually question the duke’s presence, though.
She would feel what everyone seemed to instinctually feel about Bran…
Braxton… No matter which guise he wore, you were not to question him Ever.
Guin wasn’t scared of him. If she’d tried to keep him out, he would have glared at her and insisted on keeping watch, at least, over the door. But she wanted him here.
For vengeance.
Once she was down to her shift and stockings, Mrs. Bennington took her measurements. She was a bit smaller everywhere after eight months of grief and a fortnight of obsessive experimentation.
“Are you eating?” Bran asked from his dark corner.
“When I think of it.”
“Use her old measurements.” Bran’s command was quiet, steely. “She’ll be back up to them soon.”
“Do not do anything he says,” Guin said, pinning him with a look through the mirror. “Do what you think best. The ball is only a week away, and I do not think my focus likely to shift from my current preoccupations to eating in that time.”
“They had bloody well better shift,” Bran barked.
Mrs. Bennington backed away from Guin, tape measurer clutched to her chest. “Perhaps I’ll let you two talk it over. I’ll be out in the shop looking for the right material. Do you have anything in mind, Your Grace?”
Your Grace. That wasn’t her. She pulled the bottle of love elixir from her pocket and held it up to the light. “Perhaps amber.” To remind everyone exactly who she was.
“I like her in red,” Bran rumbled.
“What you like hardly matters.”
Mrs. Bennington ran, the door slamming behind her.
“We shouldn’t make our marital struggles so public,” he said from the shadows.
“Yes, well you shouldn’t have done… well, everything you did.”
The shadows around him dissipated somewhat, and she could see more detail than before. His pained face, his fingers digging into his thighs, the bones shining through the skin, white and sharp.
“Do not let that hand move another inch closer to center.”
“And what if I do?” His hand crept another inch closer to center.
“Are you really so cocky right now?”
“That’s one word for it. I feel as if the whole of my existence has come down to that appendage, and it is focused entirely on you. Fucking Jupiter, Guin, I’ve never felt a need like this before.”
“Now you know how I felt. Now you cannot laugh.”
“I was not laughing.” His voice was quiet, but still it seemed to echo about the room. “Never,” he hissed, “was I laughing. When the love potion was riding you, I almost gave in. I was in hell. I wanted to give you everything you asked for. I couldn’t. It nearly ripped my soul in two.”
“What a heart-wrenching tale. I do so enjoy hearing of your tribulations.” She turned back to the mirror, adjusting the line of her shift at her shoulders.
“Only fear of being found out kept me from kissing you, doing more. I gave over the guard to Ned that night and walked all the way to Mayfair to keep away.”
“All for yourself. To protect your ruse.” She lifted her shift and bent a little to tighten the ribbon keeping her stocking high, and she saw him watching in the mirror, his gaze fixed on her backside, jumping to her leg, to where her cleavage spilled behind the hanging neckline of her shift.
His lips were slightly parted, and they leaked a moan.
His fingers were once more claws on his thigh, and his shaft strained against his fall.
“Please let me touch, Guin.”
“Touch me? Or touch… yourself?”
“Myself. You won’t allow the other. I know that. At least let me—”
“Not yet.”
He sagged against the wall. “Not yet.”
She shrugged one shoulder, and the flimsy muslin shift slipped down her arm.
His jaw ticked. His hand on his thigh squeezed.
And she stepped off the box, lifting the hem of her shift.
He watched her every move as if she were a danger he needed to track to save himself.
There would be no saving himself. She wouldn’t allow it.
As she picked careful steps across the room, she let the shoulder of her shift slip lower, revealing a side of one breast. It caught on her nipple, keeping her from total scandal.
Bran seemed to have stopped breathing by the time she stood right in front of him.
“Make it darker,” she said, lifting her lips to his.
He tried to kiss her.
“No.”
“Damn it, Guin.”
“Darker, Bran.”
The shadows gathered around them, so dark, she couldn’t see the doorway anymore. An illusion of utter privacy. So much about this man was an illusion.
She let the other shoulder of her shift slip, and the whole thing fell, a puddle at her feet. “Can you see in the dark?”
“Yes.” That one word guttural. “Please, Guin, let me touch you.”
“I think…” She spoke with her lips brushing against his.
“No. But I…” She found the lapels of his waistcoat in the darkness, and she followed the line of buttons down his taut torso until she came to the waistband of his trousers.
“I think I can.” And then she did, cupping the long hard length of him beneath the linen of his pants.
His hips jerked as she squeezed. He cursed as his body rippled and his hips bucked. He cursed through his climax as it ripped through him so quickly, as if he’d been holding himself for hours. As if just watching her was all the arousal he needed. One touch from her unmanned him completely.
She pulled her shift back up, set it primly about her shoulders, and left the corner.
Her gown was slung neatly over a chair, and she rifled through its pockets, found the bottle.
Returning to the shadowed corner where Bran still slumped almost lifeless against the wall, she pressed the amber bottle into his hand.
“Take it,” she whispered next to his ear.
With heavy movements he did. She felt him uncork it, felt him drink it then press the empty bottle into her palm. Felt, too, how he nuzzled her temple with his lips, not kissing her but wanting to.
And she wanted it too.
So she hardened herself and gave her next, low command. “Now go outside, tell Ned to stand guard, take yourself in the alley, and take yourself in hand.” She found his growing, hardening shaft and squeezed. “See, you’re already in need of relief. Again.”
She stepped back into the light and, trailing a cloud of shadows, Bran stormed from the room, nearly toppling Mrs. Bennington over.
“Is something amiss with his grace?” Mrs. Bennington asked.
“Not at all.” Guin stepped back up onto the box and let the modiste drape her in silks and satins and velvets, in gauzy, dreamy stuff and spangles.
“His glamour’s… unusual. Never seen the like. Looks like shadows.”
“I suppose it does.”
Guin smiled as she considered the fabrics. “The amber. But also… I think… perhaps the red.”
Because here was a man who could command shadows, who could wield blades like they were extensions of his own flesh, a man who had killed.
And she could bring him to his knees.