Dashing All the Way : A Christmas Anthology

by Eva Devon

  “Your husband was a lucky man,” he said before he thought better of it.

  She stilled for only the smallest fraction of a moment. “He was. And I was a lucky woman. But he’s not here anymore. And you are. So do shut up and kiss me.”

  He did so, and then he let her go, picking her up and pressing her into the seat opposite. “I’ll do you better than merely kiss.”

  He left her there, leaning back against the upholstery, bared to the waist and watching impatiently while he began to divest himself of unneeded clothing.

  Toby stripped his shirt over his head and tossed it into her lap. “Hold on to that for me, will you,” he whispered as he reached down and raised her legs to either side of him, resting on the opposite seat. “Because you’re going to want to hold on to something.”

  Chapter 13

  Cally’s heart was already beating a dancing allegro within her chest. “McTavish?”

  “I mean to impress you, lass. So hold fast. We’re in for a bit of a storm.” And to prove it, he flipped up her skirts, and ran his hands up and down her legs, over her stockings to the edge of her garters.

  Her dancing heart stopped. “Do you promise?”

  His smile was all in his eyes. “Aye. The better to impress you with.” He let the brogue he had been carefully covering light the edges of his words.

  “Oh, Lord help me, I do like a rogue. And I like a Scots rogue best of all.”

  McTavish slid to his knees in front of her. “Then you’re in for a treat, lass.”

  Caledonia felt heat flash under her skin, and her head felt light, faint with anticipation and need. “Pray God, you don’t disappoint me.”

  “Have I yet, lass?” His grin was sly and confident all at the same time.

  “No.” And he wasn’t disappointing her now. Not in the least.

  It had been so, so long since she had felt this kind of focused, physical attention. It had been so long since she could give herself over to the sensations sliding across her skin without needing the memories that went with it. It had been so, so, so long since she had let herself feel this kind of unbridled, unapologetic bliss.

  McTavish put his hands upon her knees and pushed them gently wider. He lowered his head to feather kisses on the insides of her thighs, and she felt herself coming undone, inch by tantalizing inch.

  Oh, God, yes, he could—Cally nearly shrieked with relief and gratitude at the first warm, wet lick of his tongue across her. But the sound that came out of her mouth was all animal pleasure.

  “Yes,” he agreed, and she could feel his voice vibrate through her as he tongued and probed her. She was carried away, floating along on a current of soft, infinitely pleasant sensation.

  And then with a precise touch she hadn’t prepared herself for—and never could quite manage on her own—he kissed her there, in exactly the right spot to make all the quiet desperation of her lonely nights in the Cheviot Hills dissipate into warmth and want. Into delicious desire.

  A craving, a hungry yearning rose within her, and her hands tangled in his hair, pulling him to her, pressing his lips—his marvelously clever lips—against that most sensitive place. She felt intoxicated with the relentlessly gentle onslaught of his tongue against the center of her very being.

  Her fingers curled and dug into the fabric of his shirt, as if they could bind her to this man, but she was untethered, carried off on a journey of passion by his strength and his gentleness. And, heaven help her, his clever, clever hands. Because, with one sweet touch she flew away, blinded by the explosion of light and heat behind her eyelids.

  Cally had no time to rest in the afterglow—while she was still wet and all but shaking from the outrageous force of her release, McTavish unbuttoned the flap on his breeches, lifted her up like a rag doll, and just as easily lowered and impaled her upon his ready member.

  And they burst into flame.

  “McTavish.” She didn’t know what else to call him. Good Lord, she had never even used the man’s Christian name, and here she was, making acrobatic love to him in an empty town coach at the back of a carriage house at a party she could not now return to.

  The only sensible thing seemed to be to wrap her arms around his neck and weather the marvelously pleasurable storm.

  She did so with a whisper at his ear. “Make it a slow ride, if you please, McTavish. Let it last a good long while.” Long enough to see her through the bleak, lonely days that were sure to come.

  With her hands about his neck, her skirts pooled down about her waist, covering his lap.

  “No, lass,” he urged against her lips. “Pull your dress back up so I can touch you.”

  Cally felt a tremor of something reckless and intoxicating shiver its way deep into her belly as she complied, hugging the folds of supple silk fabric to herself as she pulled them up.

  McTavish kept still except for his hands firmly caressing her hips as she adjusted to having him so deeply inside her, letting her find her own desire.

  “Well done, lass,” he whispered with that marvelously appreciative, and decidedly wicked grin. “You’re a beautiful sight for damn sore eyes. Devil take me if you’re not.”

  Cally made a sound that was very near to a groan as he reached around to her bottom, pulling her even more tightly against him, before he let his hands stray upwards. As his palms swept across the bunched silk of her dress she began to arch her back slightly, knowingly thrusting her aching breasts forward for his touch.

  He did not disappoint her, stroking the sensitive undersides with his fingers before moving on to draw the backs of his knuckles across her rosy pink nipples, running his fingers back and forth, grazing against the sensitive peaks until they pebbled, and she gasped with the exquisite pleasure.

  “Beautiful,” he whispered again.

  She was drenched in thankful pleasure that poured through her until she had to move, had to chase the bliss that she knew was just out of reach.

  “That’s right, lass.” He kissed her neck, and then her ear, and then kissed her deeply on the mouth.

  Cally responded instantly, channeling all her need to touch him into her mouth, into the play of her tongue with his. McTavish moved his nimble, articulate hands to the apex of her thighs, and let his fingers play against the sensitive nub at the center of her being.

  She rocked her hips into him, creating the sweet, unbearable friction between their bodies, and clever man that he was, he let her set the pace, let her find the rhythm she needed, until need and knowledge made her move more urgently.

  McTavish matched her motion, rocking his hips in rhythm to meet hers, driving upwards into her with his own increased need as she spiraled higher.

  Cally could feel her legs start to clamp together, could feel the glorious slippery tension that signaled her need for release. “Please.”

  He heard her and understood her inchoate plea. He kept one hand on her, urging her towards her fulfillment, while he wrapped the other around her waist and began to urge her up and down, sliding deeper into her slick heat.

  She couldn’t stop herself, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but try to bring the bliss nearer and nearer, faster and faster toward the rush of oblivion.

  The one thought she could form, as her climax blossomed through her body, was to kiss him on the mouth to mute her unbridled scream.

  Chapter 14

  Their parting was swift and nearly silent. Caledonia Bowmont returned to the bench opposite to let her breathing slowly return to normal, and quietly put her clothes to rights, though nothing much could be done for the tousled mess of her hair—she retrieved a pin or two from the carriage floor and pinned it up in a quick twist.

  Toby had all he could do not to stop her from tucking the long golden strands away with the rest of her inhibitions.

  But they had both best return to their respective places in the world before the collision of their planetary houses was discovered. He picked up the pearl necklace that had fallen to the floor, and returned it
to her hand. “Perhaps you had best return first?”

  “No.” Her denial was quiet but firm. “I don’t intend to go back—I’m no card player, and anyone who knows me will suspect instantly that I’ve been up to no good.”

  “No good?” He couldn’t manage to keep the prick of pride from his voice.

  “The best sort of no good,” she said as she touched his cheek in reassurance. “But I have an evening cloak I’ll need, if you would but retrieve it for me.” She sat back, out of his reach and quickly fastened on the pearls. “You can just leave it over the door.”

  “Just leave it? No speaking? No kiss goodbye?” Was he to be dismissed like a cicisbeo, no longer needed, now that he had performed to her satisfaction? His pride was like to burn a hole in his tongue.

  “Yes, goodbye, dear McTavish.” She leaned forward to kiss him sweetly on the cheek. “And thank you, so very much. Now if you’d retrieve my coat so I might have some privacy to recover myself, I would appreciate it.”

  “Recover yourself?” Was she ill or upset?

  But she was smiling. “Yes, you sweet man. It has been a very long time since I’ve had the pleasure of such sexual satisfaction, and I have the silliest urge to laugh and cry and dance about all at the same time, but I have grave suspicions about my legs’ ability to support me at this time. Thus, I should prefer to simply sit here and smile stupidly into space until I have to force myself to go home.”

  And now his smile had grown under the influence of hers. There was nothing he could say to such a sweet, silly speech but, “I will leave you to recover whilst I fetch your cloak, but then I will see you home, so I can satisfy myself that your legs do, in fact, still work. You have approximately three minutes.” This time it was he who touched her cheek, and he who planted a leisurely kiss on her mouth. “I’ll be back.”

  He did exactly as he promised, taking a moment to check his appearance in a pier glass in the front corridor and wipe the faint smear of her rouge from his lips, before he retrieved her cloak and bundled her quietly out via the mews. “Where to?”

  “My mother’s house is only a street away. Really there is no need—”

  “There is every need.” His own gentlemanly satisfaction among them.

  Toby steered them out of Grosvenor Square, around the corner and down Davies Street without incident, but as soon as they reached the edge of Berkley Square, Caledonia Bowmont put a hand to his arm to stay him.

  “I’ll go on from here. It’s too cold for you to stay out.” She pressed a quick kiss to his cheek and was off, dissolving out of his hands, though he meant to make her stay. At least long enough for a proper kiss.

  But it was cold, and he couldn’t waste time standing about the pavement when he had better, though less rewarding, things to do than kiss Caledonia Bowmont.

  He had a thief to catch.

  Toby spent the rest of the uncomfortable night watching the Meecham place from the relative comfort of the frozen rooftop of his inn. From his vantage point with his back to a chimney for warmth and shelter from the cold east wind that drove the freezing fog up the river, he had an ample view of the Meecham Mansion that fronted on Grosvenor Square, but whose garden backed up to the inn walls.

  But there was nothing of note to see. Not a flicker of movement, nor a shadow in the night. All was for naught. When dawn finally broke, red and raw in the east, he gave up his fruitless vigil, and made his quiet way down the back stairs to his room. He had just reached the bottom of the outer porch stairs below his room when she came at him.

  “Give them back, you horrible, foul man.”

  He was too happy to see her to understand what she was talking about. He drew Caledonia to him, both for the lovely comfortable feel of her in his arms, and to shield her from the innyard’s view—she was dressed informally, or rather intimately, in only a beautiful teal wool redingote over what appeared to be a white cotton flannel night dress, as if she hadn’t taken the time to do more than throw the coat on over her night clothes before she left her house. All it would take was someone spreading gossip that Viscount Balfour’s step-daughter was seen at dawn in the yard of an inn for Toby to be snared in something even tighter than a noose—the parson’s mousetrap.

  But still he was amused and impressed—how had she tracked him down?—by her presence. “If you’ll recall, lass, I didn’t steal anything you weren’t freely offering.”

  She slapped him—a hard, vicious right that sent flaming heat searing across his cheek.

  “Mother’s jewels,” she hissed. “What have you done with them?” She started to pull at his clothes, turning his pockets out. “Where have you hidden them?”

  Toby wasn’t sure what hurt more—the slap to his cheek or the blow to his pride that she would so quickly distrust him.

  He grabbed her by the wrists, and though she put up quite a struggle—she was a strong Scots lass, after all—he managed to half-pull, half-wrestle her into a quiet corner of the stable where the only one awake was a mare who stared at him balefully over the door of the box stall.

  “Keep your voice down,” he instructed in a low growl as he damned himself for a fool—a diverted, un-thinking fool. This was the second time the bloody, too-clever thief had gotten the best of him. “Now tell me exactly what has happened.”

  “You know what has happened—you betrayed my trust, cozening me up with kisses, and then stole my mother’s jewels.” Her low accusation lost nothing of its furiousness. “This is no longer a lark, McTavish—now give them back.”

  “This never was a lark, Caledonia.” He made free with her name—it seemed somehow disrespectful not to acknowledge that they were intimates. “Someone is trying to get me hanged, and they are doing a damn fine job of it. I don’t have your mother’s jewels—I didn’t steal them, damn my unseeing eyes.” He deflected a kick aimed at his shin. “Not that you’re prepared to believe me.”

  But perhaps she was, at least a little. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Then who did?”

  “That is exactly what I have been endeavoring to find out, but like you, I thought the Meechams were the most likely target—I spent the entirety of last night on the bloody rooftop hoping to catch the thief.”

  She was not convinced. “The whole of the night? It’s near freezing out.”

  “Below freezing—the river will be icing up around the banks.” He offered her his hands in proof. “Look at what I am wearing. Feel how cold my hands are. I’ve been out all night. And I am tired. So, please.” He ameliorated his tone. “Please take me to your mother now.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Fine. I’ll go alone. You can stay here and help the inn’s maids with the laundry.”

  She followed of course, practically running down the pavement in an effort to keep up. He took her hand for reasons that were obscure to both of them. There was no time for gentlemanly niceties—with this robbery someone had practically measured him for a coffin and was tying the noose around his neck as they spoke. Toby could all but feel their malevolence drawing tight over his windpipe.

  And their jealousy.

  Chapter 15

  The front door to No. 45 was magically opened from the inside just as Caledonia ran up the front step. “Are the constables already here, Withers?”

  Toby didn’t wait for either Caledonia or the butler, but started for the stair. “Where is her room—where did your mother keep her jewels?”

  “In here.” Lady Balfour answered his question from the top of the stair. “Thank you for coming so soon.”

  “Show me.” Toby didn’t waste time on preliminaries—he reckoned he had less than ten minutes before the constabulary arrived.

  “On the dressing table, there.” Lady Balfour pointed to a small table topped with a folding mirror. “I usually have my dresser lock them away in the strong box, but last night I thought it was enough to wrap the jewels I’d worn in their small cases and bags, and put them away in the drawers.”

  “Was anythin
g else stolen? Did they take only your jewels, or were any of Caledonia’s stolen as well?”

  “Just mine, I think.”

  “Be careful what you tell him, Mama!” Caledonia appeared at the door still in her coat and night dress. “I’m not quite sure if he isn’t playing us all for fools.”

  “Is he?” The viscountess was remarkably composed for a woman who had lost her finest jewels. “If he is, what is he doing here now?”

  “I don’t know. Angling for more information, certainly. Perhaps even returning to the scene of the crime in triumph,” her daughter answered while throwing looks like daggers his way.

  “He doesn’t look triumphant to me,” the viscountess remarked. “He looks as if he’s seen a ghost.”

  “Indeed.” Toby could only agree with her. “The ghost of my somehow not-forgotten past. Where does this door lead—”

  He answered his own question by opening the curtained door onto a small balcony that faced the back garden—the dark side of the house, where they wouldn’t be seen. “They came over the roof and down onto this balcony. I take it the door wasn’t locked?”

  “It’s some forty feet above the ground.” The viscountess’s tone told him she’d never considered the possibility that anyone could enter the house from such a height.

  “At least,” he agreed. “It was neatly done, I’ll give him that.”

  “Just as neatly done as you’ll be the moment the constable arrives,” Caledonia insisted. “I told Withers to send for them before I went to the inn. So you’d better make a run for it.”

  “My dear Caledonia, I never ‘run for it.’ Or more correctly, I never, while I was a professional, ever ran for it. I was a professional—I simply disappeared.”

  “Well, I shan’t prevent you from doing so now.” She snatched up the fireplace poker and waved it in his direction before she was forced to retreat to the bedchamber door in response to the sound of heavy tramping feet below. “Go on! If they find you, they’ll say they’ve got you red-handed.”