The Wicked Deeds of Daniel Mackenzie (19 page)

“And then you took me ballooning.”

“Aye, and it was grand.” Daniel touched the curve of her cheek.

Violet’s lips still curved a little with the laughter they’d been sharing. Daniel leaned to her and kissed the half smile.

Lips warmed where the air was cold. Daniel slid his hand under her scarf, finding the heavy softness of her hair.

His heartbeat quickened as he opened her lips, taking the kiss to a deeper place. Violet’s breath touched his cheek, and her hands flattened to his chest. Daniel pressed his thumb to the corner of her mouth, licking behind her lip.

The wind pushed at them, air from the sea and the land mixing to become a cold flow. Daniel wrapped his arms all the way around her, turning with her into the shadows. The terrace’s stone balustrade touched his legs, cold through wool.

He ran his hands up Violet’s back, feeling her body bend into his. Her lips parted, her eyes soft and half closing. Her cheeks showed pink beneath the dark powder, which rubbed off on his glove.

Violet’s kiss was smooth—gentle warmth. Daniel darted his tongue inside her mouth and tasted a bite of tea laced with honey. He licked again, wanting more.

“Vi.”

Violet’s hands curled on his chest as she looked up at him. Daniel read desire in the depths of her eyes, and uncertainty. His own heart was beating faster, pumping plenty of blood through his body.

“We need to get away from here,” Daniel said. Somewhere, anywhere they could be alone.

Hope left her face. “I can’t. We need the money. I can’t leave the post.”

“Don’t worry, lass. I’ll retrieve your tips, and I’ll square it with the comtesse. She’s a friend of my stepmum’s. She’ll pay your fee.”

“I already have the tips.” Violet patted a pocket of her skirt, which jingled. “I never leave the bowl unattended. Habit.”

“Smart lady. If you have the goods, then let us be off, my lovely.”

She didn’t move. “Your mother and father will grow angry with you. With me.”

Daniel shrugged. “They’re used to me. I’m five-and-twenty, and not dependent on them for my living. I come and go as I please. Always have.” He leaned to her again. “Come away with me, Violet.”

“Come away where?” she sounded desperate.

“All the way to Marseille.”

Not to his hotel, though. Gavina was no doubt curled up in Daniel’s bed, waiting for her brother to come home and tell her all about the ball. She’d been most put out she’d had to stay behind with her nanny tonight.

Not Violet’s boardinghouse. Daniel would not get her turned out for having a dalliance there. Not Richard’s rooms—Richard would either be entertaining ladies again, or resting. Hopefully resting.

That left Daniel’s other retreat. Not in the nicest part of town, but it had the benefit of peace and quiet.

Daniel took her hand. “Come on, then.”

He started walking her toward the end of the terrace, but she pulled him to a stop. “Where are you going? The doors are behind us.”

“I’m not escorting you back through the house and out, for all the world to see. Besides, love, we’re adventurers. We don’t need anything as common as doors.”

He was glad to see Violet smile again, her breath steaming. “You’re an eccentric, Mr. Mackenzie.”

Daniel took off his greatcoat, which he’d donned to come outside, and wrapped it around her. “Over we go.”

He placed his backside on the stone balustrade—chilly through his kilt—grabbed Violet around the waist, and slid over with her to the ground a few feet below. The house was built on a slope, the terrace and ballroom nearly level with the ground in the back. Daniel had scouted this when he’d come out to the terrace to plan his escape.

Violet let out a cry but stifled it as they landed in a rose garden, the roses pruned back for January. Mud squished under Daniel’s boots as he caught Violet and set her on her feet. He took her hand again, and they ran together to the cluster of carriages that waited near the house.

Daniel found the coachman who’d driven him here with his father and Ainsley. The man looked up from keeping warm with a flask and conversation with his fellow coachmen.

“Twice your fee tonight if you take me and my lady back to town,” Daniel said. “And return for my dad and stepmum without a word.”

The coachman didn’t need to ponder. He slapped the stopper onto his whiskey flask and went to the coach, opening the door for them. Daniel handed Violet in, the coachman climbed to his perch, started the horses, maneuvered them out of the crush.

Violet brushed the velvet of the padded seat to hide that her fingers were shaking. The cushions were soft, and the interior of the coach had been kept warm with tin boxes of glowing coal.

How wonderful it must be to ride about in vehicles like this all the time. Daniel didn’t even seem to notice the luxury around him.

Daniel sat right next to her, giving her his smile as he covered her hand with his. The heat inside his coat warmed her magnificently.

He knew as well as she did what they’d do this night. Everything that had gone before—the walk home from the theatre, the day out in the balloon, the innocent night at the inn, the teasing over her fortune-telling—had been leading to this. Violet, in Daniel’s bed, tonight.

She couldn’t stop shaking. Violet wanted it to happen, obviously, or she would have come up with any excuse to go back into the house and continue telling her inane fortunes to insipid debs. Instead, she’d let him talk her into running away with him.

Daniel looked as calm as a sleeping cat, but then, he took ladies back to his hotel with him all the time. Last night it had been ladies with diamonds in their hair and rouge on their cheeks. Violet had dark face powder on her cheeks and her necklace was made of fake coins. She started to laugh, and the laugh was a bit hysterical.

Daniel’s smile broadened. He leaned to her and kissed her lips.

The kiss was warm, brief. Daniel tugged the red scarf from Violet’s head and ran his fingers over her loose braid.

His touch was sure, knowing. He knew how to love a lady, and tonight, he would love Violet.

And after?

Violet refused to think about after. Getting through tonight would be enough. Desire wound through her, heating her even in the cold winter night. But she was terrified.

The coach ride was not long, the comtesse’s house lying only a few miles from Marseille itself. When they reached the edge of town, Daniel tapped on the roof and gave directions to the coachman.

When the coach stopped a short time after that, Violet looked around in surprise. The street on which they’d halted was blowing with litter and smelled of horse dung. A wine house, lit and full of noise, overflowed with patrons, and streetwalkers, female and male, strolled along, looking for marks.

A man like Daniel should stay in the best hotel in the heart of the fashionable area. Surely his glittering ladies would insist upon it. Even Violet’s boardinghouse was in a far more respectable neighborhood than this.

Daniel climbed up to give the coachman his promised fee, then he took Violet’s elbow and steered her down the street toward the corner.

“Where the devil are we?” she asked.

“The dregs,” Daniel said cheerfully. “I’ve set up a hideaway here, where I can be undisturbed. You wouldn’t believe the distractions one has in the fancy hotels. Needy friends, little sisters . . .”

This was an older part of town, with narrow streets, plaster crumbling from bricks, and arched passages connecting lanes with even smaller lanes. Daniel took her through one of these arched passages, the wind cutting in the small tunnel.

They emerged into a courtyard. Shuttered windows broke the walls around them. A rickety wooden staircase ran up to a narrow gallery with doors and windows in it, all sheltered by a tiled roof.

Daniel pulled her up the stairs to the gallery and led her to a door at the end. He produced a thick key from his pocket, unlocked the door, and let Violet inside.

To cold and clutter. Daniel touched a match to an oil lamp, then another, lighting the small room with a warm glow.

As the light increased, Violet saw that the furniture in the room was fine, whole, and new. The clutter came from boxes, machine parts, papers, and books. Every available surface was covered with sketches of machines, list of equations, and open notebooks filled with scrawled writing. Books lay everywhere, some stacks put together to be resting places for the bits of machinery.

A narrow bed stood in the corner. It had a solid wooden bedstead, but the mattress was covered with more books, sketches, and maps.

A wide, cushioned window seat was the only place in the room not covered with things. The window’s shutters had been closed against the night, making the window seat a cozy nook.

Violet picked up a sketch from the table. “What is all this for?”

“A motorcar,” Daniel said.

Violet studied the drawing. A low-slung vehicle, looking a bit like a phaeton, had been rendered in great detail. Four wheels hugged the ground, coach lights hung alongside the doors, and the seats looked as luxurious as that of the coach they’d just ridden in. Variations on this vehicle occupied other drawings.

“That’s only the chassis,” Daniel said. “What I’m trying to do is build a more efficient engine, not just a more powerful one. Daimler’s are very good, of course, but he’s more interested in industrial machinery—motorcars are more of a sideline for him. His engines will propel his horseless carriages at about fifteen or twenty miles per hour on a flat surface—provided there’s no mud. I want to make my engine ten times as powerful, and design the carriage to be able to run even on bad roads. I want more gears to give power on hills or hard terrain, and wheels better than carriage wheels with a strip of rubber on them. I’m trying pneumatic tires—with air between the wheel and the rubber.” He moved another sheet. “I’m working on a motorbike as well, something more innovative than just putting a motor on a bicycle. Kind of like a cross between a bicycle and a car.”

Violet studied the drawings with interest. “I thought you were a balloonist.”

He shrugged. “My career as an aeronaut is a passing hobby. My real concern is designing engines to make vehicles go where I want at my command. Needs much work, as you saw, firsthand. Here’s the motorbike.”

Daniel came next to her to push papers out of the way. The drawing he pulled out showed different angles of what looked like a bicycle with large tires and a large box for the engine where the pedals should be.

“Haven’t got the design quite right, yet. The engine box can’t be too big, or the rider won’t be able to keep the thing upright. But not too small, or there won’t be enough power to make it faster than a regular bicycle. But bicycles can run across fields and through mud where even horses have difficulty.”

Daniel’s animation as he spoke about his designs made him different from the Daniel she’d observed with his friends on the street or at tonight’s ball. Both places he’d been full of lazy smiles and cultured charm, speaking with the same ease to courtesans as he did the comtesse.

Now his gaze held intensity, his focus all for the inventions he loved. His body hummed with his excitement, the heat of him next to her cutting through the cold in the room.

Violet liked him best like this, his hair rumpled, his eyes warm as he focused on his passions. Daniel was letting Violet into his world. The energy he exuded as he talked her through the drawings rendered every gentleman she’d met at the ball tonight languid and dull.

Then he stopped. “Damn, listen to me.” Daniel dropped the drawings to the table. “I bring a beautiful woman back to my rooms, and I talk about engines.”

“I like engines.” Violet did. Everything about the balloon and these motorcars and motor-bicycle fascinated her.

“I know you do. That’s why I adore you, lass. Hang on a minute.”

Daniel made a path to the fireplace in the corner, shoveled a bit of coal into it, and lit it with a few matches. After a moment, fire began to flicker around the coals, on their way to bringing warmth to the room.

“Better.” Daniel wiped his hands on a rag that was already stained with coal dust and tossed it down. “I’ll show you what I’ve done on the bike and the motorcar when we get back to London. For now . . .”

He peeled the greatcoat from her shoulders and ran his hands up Violet’s arms. In spite of him forsaking his gloves when they’d entered, his hands were already warm, dragging heat into her skin.

Violet still shook, her heart alternately squeezing in cold pulses or pounding hot.

She wanted this. She wasn’t a shrinking virgin, was she? Daniel was amazing, handsome, funny, kind. He’d brought her here to be his lover for the night, in this place of his heart, tucked away where no one would find them.

Why not take what he offered, even if only once?

But she sensed the terror lurking inside her, coiled like a waiting snake.

Daniel wasn’t the monster. Violet’s past was.

Daniel continued to caress her, his hands coming up to clasp her shoulders. His first kiss would be gentle, she already knew that. And then he’d touch her and slowly open her.

The slowness might kill her. Too much time for the fear to take over, to dictate what happened.