No Place for a Dame (22 page)

And with that invitation, Avery found her tongue. She feared she might have found it a little too much because, thinking back now, it seemed that she had done nothing but chatter for the last half hour.

“Did I talk too much?” she now asked Giles worriedly.

They were still in the library, Giles stoppering up the crystal decanter while she stood rooted in place, staring at the doorway through which Sir Samuel had departed.

“Did I make sense?”

He smiled at that. “My dear, I am hardly in a position to judge.”

“Did he
look
like I was making sense? I’m afraid I was talking too fast and sometimes when I talk too fast, my reasoning might not appear very cohesive. Did he look like I was making sense?” she repeated.

“Do you mean was he openly snickering? No.”

“Oh, no! Was he
surreptitiously
snickering?” she asked, horrified.

Giles laughed and took her hand reassuringly in his. It seemed the most natural thing in the world for her to clutch it, a talisman against fear. It wrapped more securely around hers, warm and strong.

“Take a breath, Avery. No. He wasn’t snickering at all. You acquitted yourself well. Did you not see me, nodding and preening, as proud as if I had discovered your comet myself?”

His reassurance meant everything to her. In truth, he
had
been nodding and smiling and following the conversation as if truly interested. She had little doubt that this was not the case and that it had all been for effect and for her benefit. Overcome with gratitude and relief, she pulled her hand free of his and flung her arms around him, hanging around his neck like an awkward pendant, her tiptoes scraping the floor. “He didn’t snicker!” she burbled happily. “You’re
sure
he didn’t snicker? Oh, thank you, Strand. Thank you!”

In answer, his arm wrapped around her, pulling her tight as he straightened, lifting her off the ground. She twisted her head to smile up at him and say—

Whatever words she’d been about to utter died. His gray eyes found hers, soft as ashes, banked and heated. There was nothing cold or arctic in his gaze tonight.

Even through the padded corset separating them, she was intensely aware of the muscular planes of his chest, of his long, powerful thighs and the strong arm binding her to him like a steel band. She wished she wasn’t wearing the wretched corset so she might be even more intimate with the body next to her own. Her heart fluttered like a trapped bird in her chest. Her arms simply would not release their hold.

She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue, hoping some words would come. His free hand drifted up her back to cup her head. She had all the time in the world to turn away, every opportunity to break their intermingled gazes. She didn’t. He lowered his head, slowly, purposefully.
His lips touched hers. She sighed, nearly swooning with the tenderness of it, the promise. Or was that him? And then his mouth was covering hers, deeply, completely.

As a kiss went, it was fairly shattering. The world spun away and all sensation narrowed to the point where his lips covered hers, warm and vital and urgent. His fingers speared through her short curls as he bent her over the arm bracing her, following her down.

No cautionary story she’d ever heard—and Mrs. Bedling had made certain she’d heard plenty—had prepared her for such a kiss. Because even though her intellect stood back, aghast and fully cognizant that what was happening shouldn’t be happening, her blood sang in her veins, an intoxicating primal song that drowned out all the warning from her higher faculties.

She wrapped her arms more tightly around his neck, not to keep herself from falling but to urge him closer. He tasted of port, his lips firm and warm, stirring a fire that ought not to have been lit. She kissed him back, deeply, fiercely, giving a little gasp of ravished discovery when his tongue touched hers and stayed.

But at that utterance, at the very moment of trembling surrender, as abruptly as it had begun, he ended the kiss. With a rough sound, he pulled his mouth from hers and straightened. Gently, he set her on her feet. She swayed and he caught her elbow, steadying her, his gaze intent but shuttered.

She didn’t know what to think. How to react. She fought the impulse to demand to know why he’d stopped, fought an equally strong impulse to flee in mortification, and ended staring at him, trying to decipher what she saw in his face. Like an
Ombres chinoises
, the shadow puppet plays she’d seen in France, indistinguishable emotions flickered across his countenance too quickly to interpret or even define.

Then he smiled at her, a little crookedly, and touched a finger to her chin.

“My pardon,
mon chat
. ’Twas force of habit, I’m afraid. Put a female—even one disguised as a male—in my arms and I cannot help myself.”

She blinked at him.

“Come now, Avery.” He sounded calm, perfectly natural—except his chest was moving a little too deeply, as though he were forcibly regulating his breath. “Don’t look so tragic. It was only a kiss.”

“Yes,” she said, terrified her voice would quake. “Yes. Of course. How provincial you must find me.”

And before he could answer, she turned and fled.

Chapter Twenty-Two

G
iles cursed silently as he watched Avery disappear down the dim hallway outside the library. His hand curled into a fist by his side and he closed his eyes tightly, tipping his face up towards the ceiling and breathing heavily. He wanted very much to hit something. Hard. And if it hit back, all the better.

Her scent had been his undoing. She’d thrown her arms around him in a moment of unfettered exuberance—only a blackguard would have mistaken it for anything else—and he’d been about to give her an avuncular pat on the shoulder when he’d inhaled. She’d smelled of wool and faintly of soap, but above all she’d smelled like Avery, a fragrance subtly sweet and deeply earthy, as vibrant and feminine and thought-clouding as an opiate. Her scent had been the inciting spark, but he would be lying if he didn’t admit that other factors had contributed to that kiss, too. He hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off her all evening.

When Sir Isbill had asked her to describe the process by which she predicted the appearance of the comet, her pupils had dilated, her indigo irises shining and the color rising with a flush of excitement to her face. All he could do was watch in astonished wonder, asking himself
how Isbill failed to
see
her, recognize the lovely, sylphlike woman sitting across from him beneath the ridiculous lumpy padding and bushy brow?

How could Isbill think skin that translucent, that satiny, could belong to a man? The shape of her ear, the slender throat, the subtle dishing at her temples, the blue-green tracery of veins on the inside of her wrists—all of these things declared her. Was Isbill blind?

Or was
he
mad?

Undoubtedly mad. It wasn’t just how she looked that had his heart thundering and his hands clenched at his sides. It was so much more. Her spirit, her laughter, her irreverence… everything. Giles opened his eyes as he banished her image, the memory of her mouth yielding beneath his, her arms tightening around his neck, her heart beating wildly—

Damn it to bloody hell! What if one of the servants had come in and seen them? It was only a stroke of luck they hadn’t.

As if in answer to a premonition, a pair of maids appeared in the doorway to clear the tables. The sight of him standing alone in the middle of the room clearly startled them. They bobbed twin curtseys, muttered, “Pardon, m’lord,” and made to leave.

“Come in. I’m done.” He brushed past them and headed for his chambers with a grimly renewed sense of purpose.

That kiss could very well have destroyed Avery’s hope of realizing her dreams. Not only that, but it would have jeopardized his own quest to find out what had happened to Jack and Anne Seward.

He’d done as much as he could do on Avery’s behalf. The next move was up to Sir Isbill. At least for a short time, he was free to pursue his own investigation. Besides, he needed to clear his head. For the time being, this
was
Avery’s home. And as such, she should be safe from the sort of attentions he had offered. It was his duty to provide her a safe haven and he failed miserably,
because she smelled good
. Good God. Where was his self-restraint? His discipline? His sense of honor?

Had another man taken such liberties with her, he’d have called him out. The very least he could do was make sure he did not repeat the offense. He should take to heart the very words he’d said to her: It was just a kiss. Avery was not some seventeen-year-old chit. She was twenty-four, damnably attractive, and had lived in more places than he. Somewhere in her past, surely some young man had stolen a kiss.…

Perversely, the idea did nothing to improve his mood. In fact, it fouled it further. He swore again, taking the stairs two at a time, refusing to allow himself to glance at her door.

Once in his rooms, he traded his tailored clothing for the worn, ill-fitting, but warm clothing of a tradesman. He donned a heavy greatcoat, tucking a loaded pistol into an inner pocket. Where he was headed a wise man armed himself for any eventuality and he was, at least in most instances, a very wise man.

Then, he headed down stairs and out into the night.

To hunt.

The noise grew to deafening proportions as the tiers of benches lining the small, converted mews filled with people. Costermongers and soldiers, tinkers, rag pickers, butchers, and servants crowded the room. Intermingled amongst them was a spattering of apprehensive-looking young blades come down to the docks for a night’s entertainment. A couple of lorry men began hauling out rats’ cages and stacking them in the pit, its sides boarded four feet high. A few of the canine “contestants,” quivering like violin strings on their masters’ laps, began whining nervously.

Giles stood near the doorway, waiting for the man he’d arranged to meet. He hoped to be done with his business by the time the ratters were loosed. Dog fighting and animal baiting had always seemed to him a despicable and cowardly amusement. If one found bloodletting necessary to be entertained, then one ought to have the balls to offer up one’s own blood in its pursuit.

A boy, his feet bound in rags against the icy ground and an inadequate coat hugging his narrow frame, appeared next to him and handed him a note. “Mr. Bees said to give you this and that you’d pay me a shilling when you got it,” the boy muttered.

“Did he?” Giles pressed a pair of shillings into the boy’s palm, being careful to do so out of sight of interested eyes. If anyone knew the boy
had been given money, he wouldn’t get far before someone tried to take it. Rather than leave at once, the boy lingered, provoking Giles’s curiosity.

“What is it, lad?”

The boy’s small face puckered, resentful and angry. “You rich?” he finally blurted out. “Mr. Bees says you’d gimme a shilling ’cause you’re a toff. You don’t look like no toff to me.”

Giles supposed he ought to be gratified. “I make do. How does it concern you?”

The boy’s gaze darted across the room to where a brutish-looking man with a carbuncle for a nose stood above a small, cowering, dirty-tan terrier bitch. “That there is me dog. Were me dog. You ought ter buy her off that bloke. Ye won’t be sorry. She’s a fair devil on rats when she’s got her ’ealth.”

Giles regarded the boy soberly. “I don’t fight dogs. I don’t bet on ratting either.” He turned but the boy grabbed his sleeve.

“That’s fine then. Fine.” The words tumbled out of the boy in a desperate rush. “You take her to your house and you’ll never see another rat again. She got good manners. Don’t piss in her cage. Don’t bite. Much.”

Giles smiled ruefully and reached into his pocket for another shilling, thinking it would put an end to the conversation. He handed it to the lad, but he shook his head, angrily refusing it. An urchin who wouldn’t take a coin? Something was off.

He lowered his voice. “Why are you so eager to get rid of the dog?”

For a moment the boy stared at him, hard-learned caution and mistrust warring with a greater need. “She’s a good dog!” he finally blurted out in a low, fierce voice. “But she’s old. Four or five years. And she ain’t won a penny in months. She’s warshed up and he’s gonna sell her to the dog fighters tonight fer a bait dog. She’ll fetch him a good price counta she’ll fight back.”