After the Kiss

by Karen Ranney

  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.

  Chapter 9

  A woman of pleasure understands the power

  of both tenderness and passion.

  The Journals of Augustin X

  When 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.

  Normalcy, something decidedly missing these past weeks.

  He reached out and cupped her face. Lowered his head. She closed her eyes. He wished her lips did not tremble. One hand reached behind her neck as if to hold her to him. He lowered his head until his mo
uth was only an inch from hers, breathed against her lips, priming them for his kiss.

  Instead, he traded the kiss for words. “Stay with me,” he said.

  Her hands gripped his arms. Her eyes flew open. Her breath, heated and rapid, bathed his lips. He wanted to know what she thought, why she looked so panicked at this moment. Yet it was not all fear. She would not hold him so tightly, nor would the blush on her cheek be deepening in color, if it were.

  “I cannot,” she said tremulously.

  “Why not? There is no one to know, Margaret. No one but us.”

  He was not celibate by nature. It was caution more than inclination that had prevented him from forming a long-term alliance with any woman. Yet there were few alternatives. He’d not the inclination to take advantage of the offers from bored wives, some of whom were married to friends of his. Nor did he use the services of those poor women of the street. Consequently, he had been almost a monk in the past year.

  That was the only reason he felt this way.

  He should take her to his bed, submerge himself in the femaleness of her. Indulge himself in an afternoon of seduction. And when it was over, he would be himself once again. A man of order, systematic reasoning, detailed logic. Not a beast with but one thought on his mind.

  He smoothed his fingers from both shoulders to wrists. Slow, gliding strokes. He wanted to put his hands on her skin, feel the texture of it. Forbidden wishes. He was as far from civility at this moment as he was from rational thought.

  Slowly, giving her time to protest, he placed his palms on the front of her spencer. Felt the warmth of her, the pounding beat of her heart. Not unaffected, but still silent. Was she afraid? Or simply willing?

  “This garment is too tight for you,” he said. “Your breasts feel constrained.”

  The dress was the same one she’d worn the night he’d met her. At the time he had thought it a costume. Now he recognized it for what it was. An indication if not of penury, then of careful pride. He had not recognized the signs of poverty before, so captivated with the woman. Now he could not ignore it.