After the Kiss (8 page)

When she remained silent, he continued. “I want to know why I can’t forget you.”

She turned slowly and looked up at him.

“It’s only a kiss, Margaret,” he urged. “And once it’s done, this fascination will be over.”

“One kiss,” she said, attempting to appear as worldly as he. In truth, her heart was beating a strange tattoo, one of skipped beats and sheer excitement.

Slowly, she tilted her chin up, closed her eyes. Waited in an agony of expectancy. A thousand starlings flew in her chest, and her cheeks were heated as if by a brazier. Her lips were full, expectant and waiting, and her breathing sounded too harsh, as if she had run a great distance.

But instead of the warm brush of his lips upon her
mouth, she felt the slow stroke of his thumb across her lips. She opened her eyes to discover him smiling down into her face.

“Not here. I want to kiss you somewhere where we will not be interrupted.”

She blinked at him, suddenly uncertain.

Montraine smiled softly, almost dispassionately, turned, and walked to the sideboard.

Surreptitiously, she pressed a hand to her chest. Her breasts felt hard, achy.

He picked up her belongings, returned to her side. He handed her the reticule and the
Journal
, then helped her arrange the shawl around her shoulders.

At the door he turned and held out his hand. She stared wide-eyed at him. A look passed between them, one of questions asked and answered. Did she want to go with him? Almost desperately. Was it wise? No. Was he a man to trust? She had felt safe with him from the beginning, but trust was not what she felt at this particular moment.

One kiss. A lure, an invitation. An impossible attraction to resist. Desire was a word found only in the
Journals of Augustin X
, never in her life. One kiss, that was all.

Perhaps, after all, what she wanted was to build up a store of memories for when she was old. I kissed an earl, she might say to her students, and the young girls would giggle.

She smiled, stretched out her hand, and went with him.

T
ogether they left the Earl of Babidge’s house, encountering only the majordomo at the door. Montraine nodded briskly at the man, and he stepped back, deferential in a way he had never been to Margaret.

If she had been the butler she would have been quelled by that look. As it was, she found herself fascinated.

Montraine walked to the hack, dismissed him with a few words, then returned to her side. Silently emanating from him was an authority more effective than another man’s boast.

Without a word, he led her to a gleaming ebony carriage drawn by four matched bays. A footman jumped from the back and opened the door for her.
Montraine said nothing as she hesitated, simply stood aside for her to precede him.

She mounted the steps and entered the carriage. Montraine settled into the seat in front of her, his back to the horses. The curtains were open, but she didn’t pretend an interest in the scenery. Instead, she met his gaze.

“A difficult journey to make with one footstep,” she said. “From modest and proper to heedless.” Abandoned.

“Are you feeling heedless, Margaret?” he asked, a smile curving his lips.

“Yes,” she admitted. Danger. Why didn’t she feel it? Instead, anticipation curled in the pit of her stomach.

“Are there any little Esterlys claiming your attention?” he asked suddenly.

“I have no children,” she softly said. It was a sadness with which she’d learned to live.

“No maiden aunts, no uncles, no parents in reserve?”

“No,” she said. Except for Penelope, there was no one. But the bond between them was one of friendship, not relation.

“No siblings?”

He was implacable in his curiosity.

“Why do you ask?”

“I only wished to know if there was anyone who waits for you.”

“Only my students,” she said. “And they do not expect me until tomorrow.”

He looked surprised.

“I teach the village girls,” she explained.

“Yet there is London in your voice.”

“I was born and raised here,” she admitted.

He sat angled against the seat, the better to make use of the space with his long legs. He commanded the interior of the carriage as he had the terrace.

“What do you teach them?”

She smiled. “To read and write correctly. A rudimentary ability in ciphering, some French, and some unremarkable talent in drawing.”

“Why did you leave London?”

“I wished a change,” she said, surprised at the ease she felt in telling him. “I suspect it is something contrary to my nature, that I should wish to live in the country while those in London have nothing but contempt for it.”

“Is that why you’re here now? Because of something contrary in your nature?”

Perhaps, she silently answered. Or because she very much wanted a kiss from him.

“Why did you let Babby think you were married?” he asked, as if he knew she would not admit to fascination. Or loneliness.

“Because men do not often wish to transact business with women. And it is safer to have a customer believe that a husband will protect against any unwelcome advances.”

“Did Babby give you any difficulty?” His face tightened, his smile vanishing.

She smiled at him. “No. I had the distinct impression that it embarrassed him to deal with me. I confess to thinking the earl resembles a cute hedgehog. He would look excessively silly leering.”

“Babby will not appreciate such a comment,” Michael said, his good humor restored. “He fancies himself a man a with a great attractiveness to the ladies.”

His hand clenched atop the walking stick, his eyes were a direct and piercing blue.

I want to know why I couldn’t forget you
.

A sentiment she had felt often enough during these past weeks. He felt the same as she. Her conscience whispered to her. She should be cautious. Discreet.

Instead, she smiled.

She was lovely. Her hair was auburn, a perfect shade against the ivory of her complexion. Her eyes were hazel, their hue a warm green at the moment. But it was her mouth that fascinated him. The upper lip was as full as the lower. A perfect pout, as if nature had crafted this one mouth for kissing.

One kiss. That was all he wanted. Then, he would be himself once more, focused upon his future. He would execute the Cyrillic cipher and pick out a bride. His thoughts would not be filled with an unknown woman who enchanted him. He would kiss her and she would be only a woman again. Not a Circe.

She seemed almost innocent sitting there. She had blushed when he’d spoken of her mouth. Yet she’d come to London to sell a lewd book to Babby. A contradiction, a duality of her nature, that she would be both daring and seemingly virtuous.

He’d been impatient for her arrival, irritated by the delay of it. When she’d entered Babby’s library he’d watched her. There was something about the way she walked. When she’d turned from the window, straightened her shoulders, tilting her head up for his kiss, he’d heard a clarion call of warning.

This woman would be better forgotten. Except, of course, that he had been unable to do so.

“Are you wondering why I have not kissed you yet?” he asked. He smiled slightly at the look on her face. A curious combination of eagerness, anticipation, and surprise. He felt himself tighten, his caution
being beaten down by a baser, more fervent need.

Instead of responding, she asked a question of her own. “Where are we going?”

To perdition, no doubt. But it was not the answer he gave her. “I would be wise to take you somewhere public,” he admitted. “But it is either too early, or there are no amusements I would care to subject you to.”

She sat, patient, waiting for him to complete his answer.

“I’m taking you home,” he said finally.

“Your home?” she asked, wide-eyed.

He nodded. “A bachelor establishment,” he said. “A house I share with a dignified butler and a maid I rarely see.” There, he had laid it out for her. Blatantly and without adornment. He was taking her somewhere private, where he might kiss her for as long as a kiss lasted.

“Do you want to return to Babby’s?”

“Should I?”

“An answer only you can divine, Margaret.”

Her eyes were wide, but she remained silent. “Only one kiss?” she asked finally.

“Yes,” he said, his tone harsher than he’d wished. “At the end of it, I will place you in a carriage myself.”

He didn’t tell her that if she opened the door or summoned the driver, he would use every means within his disposal to change her mind. He allowed her the illusion of freedom at that moment. But in fact, their destiny had been decided that night on the terrace.

W
hen the carriage stopped, they alighted from it in silence. As if neither could bear to speak lest they break the spell of shimmering anticipation.

She looked around as Montraine walked to the front of the carriage, spoke to the driver. There were in a fashionable tree-lined square, absurdly quiet, as if the cacophony of London did not exist only blocks away. The house was not unlike the Earl of Babidge’s, but Montraine’s home differed in that the steps were banded by a black wrought-iron railing and the brass knocker on the black door was in the shape of a large fish.

“What did you tell him?” she asked Montraine, when he returned to her side. The driver flicked the reins, encouragement the horses did not seem to need.

“That I would not require him for a while,” he said,
as he took her arm. He escorted her up the wide steps. A bachelor establishment, he had said.

Now was the time for caution. If she wished to leave, she should say so at this moment. She did not doubt that he would call back the carriage, make arrangements for her to be taken wherever she wished. Men like Michael Hawthorne did not need to force a female.

But it was not coercion she felt. Only fascination.

She remained mute as he ushered her up the steps. They were greeted at the door by a tall man with a shock of white hair and a military bearing. His attire was of somber black, with a stock so heavily starched it looked almost painful to wear.

“Smytheton,” Michael said, “you may have the rest of today out.”

The majordomo managed a wintry smile. “I have no plans, my lord.”

“I shall not need you,” Michael said.

Only then did the man nod once, sharply, before leaving them.

Montraine turned and stretched out his hand. She handed him the
Journal
and reticule and he placed them on the table beside the door. What more would he take from her? Her will? No, it was her own decision to be here. An unwise one, she suspected. If he was not the flame, neither was she a moth. Only lonely, perhaps. And wishing an adventure to hold secret and guarded in her heart.

The faint light illuminated the surprising foyer, a rotunda created by twelve marble columns, each festooned with carved leaves and topped with an ornate basket of engraved flowers.

Above them was a clear dome of glass rendered golden by the bright sun. An array of brilliant white
marble statues decorated its outer curve. Women had been carved dressed in flowing gowns so sheer that the shape of their legs could be seen. Men were attired in swaths of material that barely shielded their loins before being draped over one shoulder. Each statue held a different pose, but each stretched out a hand, palm curved and fingers curled. As if to feel the sunlight that streamed in through the clear glass dome and fell in a perfect circle between the columns of the rotunda. A bird flew over the dome; his shadow fell on her before she was bathed by sunlight again.

She tilted back her head, closed her eyes. It was not unlike the experience she had in the Standing Stones. As if she were a very small part of a vast, unknown world.

She opened her eyes to find him standing there, watching her. His smile was slow, an oddly warming expression. She felt the effect of it down to her toes.

“A pantheon,” Michael said, moving closer. “The original owner had a penchant for statuary and a love for antiquity.”

She looked about her. Stairs curved around the rotunda like a bird’s wing, soared two stories above them.

“Say something,” he urged.

“What should I say?” Her question reverberated back to her. She stared, delighted, at the figures above her. “It has an echo.”

“Whisper something,” he coaxed, leaning against one column. “It’s even more amazing.”

“Montraine,” she said. His lips curved in a smile as the sound of his name reverberated around them.

She looked up again, as if the whispers hid in the statues above them. “How wonderful.” Praise that echoed back to her.

He came to her then, slowly untied the bow of her bonnet, his fingers trailing his hands down the length of ribbon. He bent his head, so close that his breath whispered against her cheek.

Now?

But instead of kissing her, he stepped back, his soft smile appearing to approve of her silence and her acquiescence. She could do little else, trapped in this moment, adrift in wonder beneath a pantheon. She was no longer the virtuous widow, the teacher, the friend. She became someone else in his presence, as if he saw beneath the façade to the person she wished to be. Secure from gossip, safe from censure, in this room and this moment she could be audacious and almost wicked.

His fingers slid beneath her bonnet and threaded through her hair.

Margaret’s breath caught.

His palms rested warmly against her temples. She closed her eyes, waiting. But he only pushed the bonnet from her hair and it fell with a soft rustle of sound to the floor.

Her lips trembled in anticipation. Her lashes fluttered open finally. Her face warmed at his unwavering, almost fierce look.

“One kiss, Montraine,” she reminded him in a whisper.

“Yes,” he said curtly, removing her gloves from each hand as if she’d lost the ability to move. Perhaps she had.

He lay the gloves she’d borrowed from Penelope on the table, bent and retrieved her bonnet, and placed them beside it. Gloves, book, bonnet, reticule. A decorous tableau of accessories. A woman’s presence in his bachelor home. How many other women
had been here? How many had he seduced with an effortless smile and a bit of whimsy?

She didn’t want to know.

He returned to her side, reached for her hand again, studying it intently. She tried to pull away from his grasp, but he would not allow it. Instead, he smoothed his fingers over the tips of hers.

“I still have your glove,” he said absently, stroking her fingers.

“Do you?” she asked, surprised that she was able to speak without her voice trembling. “I wondered where it had gone,” she said. A lie. She recalled only too well the moment of their dance, his tucking it into his jacket.

“I keep it in my desk drawer,” he admitted with a smile as if mocking himself. “Like a schoolboy I study it from time to time. Why is that, I wonder?” He lifted his head, his gaze pinning her in place.

She shook her head wordlessly.

Time was suspended, the moments passing more slowly than normal. They stood motionless within the circle of columns. The sunlight streaming in through the dome’s convex curve lifted the shadows. Silence was their accessory, their actions condoned and given absolution by the marble smiles of the gods and goddesses above them.

He took her hand, turned it over and rested it on his, and now trailed his fingertip from wrist to the tip of her thumb and back again. A journey repeated again and again with each finger.

She shivered.

“Are you cold?”

“Yes.” There, another lie.

He threaded his fingers through hers, turned and walked with her across the rotunda. He opened the
door to another room, turned, and smiled at her coaxingly.

The sitting room was surprisingly intimate. A settee upholstered in blue silk sat against one wall. Facing it were two wing chairs in a soft ivory and blue fabric. Between them was a large square table adorned with a bowl of spring flowers.

He led her to the small black granite fireplace against one wall, stood with her in front of it. He still had not relinquished her hand. His fingertip moved slowly back across her palm to the inside of her wrist, as if he measured the pounding beat located there. Then he traced a small circle in the middle of her palm.

Her fingers curled toward her wrist, and he gently pressed them back. It was a delicate touch, hardly shocking, but still she trembled. There was no moonlight, no sound of violins, no darkness to hide her response.

She suspected he would stop the moment she asked him to cease. Or if she pulled her hand away. A lesson then, in those moments. She could not dictate his actions, but she could curtail them.

Yet she remained silent and motionless.

“You are very sensitive,” he said. “I will have to be gentle with you.” His fingers linked with hers and he curled them into a fist, trapping his fingertips against her palm. He pulled her closer to him, an inch at a time. So slowly that she could have stopped him at any moment. Or spoken the words to halt him.

She felt his breath against her forehead. Trapped in wonder, she closed her eyes. His fingers traced from her temple to her chin.

Enchantment.

He stood so close to her that he could hear her breathe. He leaned his head down, rubbed his cheek against the softness of the hair at her temple.

Her hands reached out and gripped the sleeves of his coat. For balance? Did she feel as unstable as he?

“If I kiss you now,” he said, forcing the words past the construction in his throat, “I will have to let you go.”

“One kiss, that’s all,” she said faintly.

A gentle admonition. He swore silently to himself, wishing that he had not given her his word.

“Yes,” he said grimly, “one kiss.”

His hands brushed against her back as he eased her toward him. She took a tiny step forward, until one foot was wedged between his boots. Could they stand any closer? Each leaned against the other, eyes closed. His fingers fanned out, pressed against her shoulders, slid down her back slowly. He felt himself hardening even further, a physical response to a need that had been present since he’d seen her at Babby’s.

She was a stranger. Yet he’d thought too much about the kiss she’d almost given him. Then why had he not taken it earlier, when she’d tilted back her head and waited for it? Because he wished to touch her as he did at this moment. Softly, with the hint of appeasement in the distance. Gently, his need vying with his curiosity.

He stepped back, dropped his hands to his side. A stoic denunciation of the anticipation he felt.

Her expression was bemused, her eyes wide, the pupils dark. As if she had just now awakened from sleep. Or been loved well and long.

He had lost his anchor somewhere between meeting her at Babby’s house and this moment. He was no longer certain of what he should, or would, do.

One short and unremarkable kiss. It should not have attained such a degree of importance.

He moved closer to the fireplace, grateful that Smytheton had lit a small blaze. It gave him something to do, something upon which to concentrate other than her.

Still, he could not help but glance at her. He should not focus on that mouth. Instead, he should banish her from his sight, hie himself to his library and concentrate on the Cyrillic cipher.

How was it that a woman married once should have such an aura of innocence? An almost untouched quality?

Her glance was questioning, her silence an inquisition.

He held out his hand, and even though they were only feet apart, she took one more step closer. He touched her lips with the fingertips of his other hand. They were surprisingly warm. Almost hot.

She said nothing, as if she knew how tenuous was his restraint. He had not thought that touching her would affect him the way it did. He pulled her closer to him again. He leaned down, until he was only an inch away from her mouth.

“This is not a kiss,” he said. He placed his fingers beneath her chin, tilted her head up. “Not a kiss,” he murmured. His lips moved closer, until they were only a breath away. If she had sighed, their mouths would have touched.

She remained motionless, almost breathless. Until his tongue reached out and touched the sloping curve of her bottom lip. The taste of her. Only that. Her breath hitched then, a gasp of surprise. It might have faded from his consciousness, eased his growing
arousal, might have assuaged his curiosity had she not reached out with her own tongue and touched the tip of his.

For a second they were frozen in intimacy, daring and teasing. Testing the very edges of restraint.

It was difficult to hold her so close, and not kiss her. Why had he not done so on the terrace? They might, then, be more familiar in this moment. He might take her upstairs to his chamber and love her in the brightness of an afternoon sun.

Instead, he was held to his honor. To his word. One kiss, that was all, and he would release her.

He pulled back from her, framed her face with his hands. His thumbs stroked across her eyebrows, the warmth and blush of her cheeks. Her eyes fluttered shut, a slight gasp emerged from her parted lips, a pulse beat strong and heavily at her neck as if her heart raced as swiftly and uncontrollably as his.

His fingers threaded through the hair at her temples. Tendrils were coming loose from her careful braid. He found the pins at the nape of her neck, removed one, and let it fall to the floor.

Margaret’s eyes opened; her hand flew to her hair. He brushed it aside, pulled the braid from its coil, and draped it over her shoulder. His fingers played with the end of it, all his concentration fixed on one tress.

He wanted the braid loosened, the curls flowing over her shoulders. An improvident wish. He curled his fist around the braid, over and over, until his hand was against her scalp and her head tilted back.

Her gaze was steady on him, her look clear and without guile. She did not ask him to release her, nor charm him with words. She did that too well with silence.

Outside a carriage no doubt passed. The steps of an
adjoining townhouse were being swept, one of London’s ubiquitous bells rang. In this room, however, there was only the sound of the fire, the brush of his breath and hers. The moment framed in utter stillness.

His other hand reached up and traced the sweeping line of her throat.

He could smell the scent on her skin. Something light and flowery that reminded him of spring. Her skin was warm, her pulse fast.

He should have argued for more of her. Two kisses. A hundred. More than one. It was an idiotic thing to do, to bring her here. Why had he done so? Because he had wanted more than to simply kiss her. He wanted to take her to his bed. There, the truth.

Once done, it would be over. She would be placed in a carriage and his life would return to normal. He would spend hours on the Cyrillic cipher and not on wondering who she was. He would select his bride and be about his marriage.