by Juliana Gray
“I say, sir. I don’t mean to interrupt,” said Hatherfield, “but did you happen to bring Mr. Thomas with you this evening?”
“Well, hello, James.” Eleanor lifted her cheek.
“I beg your pardon, my dear.” He kissed her. “You’re well.”
“Quite. So is little Jane, if you’re interested. You haven’t been around in ages.”
He arranged his face in contrite lines. “Terribly sorry. Things have been rather mad lately. Sir John, about Thomas.”
“Thomas?”
“Your clerk, for God’s sake. Did he arrive with you?”
“Thomas? Why, no.” Sir John was still smiling. “Left him at home. Had an errand, he said, and would be along later. Hasn’t he turned up?”
“No, he hasn’t.”
An errand. What did that mean? The obvious possibility burst at once into his brain. Stefanie had gone to Park Lane, to her sister’s ball. Meddlesome, impetuous Stefanie. What was he thinking, leaving her to her own devices, even for an hour or two? A damned minute, for that matter. He should have set Nelson on her. His fist curled against his leg.
“Did he happen to reveal the nature of this errand?” Hatherfield said, with dry lips.
“Why, no. I expect he left something unfinished from today’s case, or some damned thing. He and Charlotte were bickering in the music room, and . . .”
“Lady Charlotte!”
“Who’s this Mr. Thomas?” asked Eleanor. “Do I know him?”
But Hatherfield was off again, this time at a run. Lady Charlotte was dancing in the formal clasp of a tall man with neatly clipped light brown whiskers—Eleanor’s husband, he registered vaguely—and she did not look pleased.
“Cutting in, I’m afraid,” he said, sweeping her away from her partner, and her face lit with instant delight.
“Hatherfield! I knew you’d arrive. How animated you look! I . . .”
“Where is he, Charlotte?”
“Who?”
“Thomas. What the devil have you done?” He executed a flawless turn.
She made a show of looking about the sparse ballroom. “Isn’t he here?”
“You know very well he is not. Sir John tells me you were arguing with him, before you left tonight.”
“Well, I certainly haven’t seen him since.” She tossed her head in a jingle of dark curls.
“What did you say to him?”
“Nothing of consequence. He was most insulting to me. Odious little wretch. I should have . . .”
“You left him at home, then? Did he say what he was doing? Where he was going?”
“Only that he would be along shortly. I don’t know why you care so passionately. He has no manners, none at all, and as for his face, which some find so unaccountably handsome, I would never consider . . .”
Hatherfield flung her around another turn, this time landing her efficiently into the astonished arms of her previous partner.
She called after him. “Hatherfield! What on earth are you doing?”
“If anyone asks, I shall be in Park Lane.”
He bounded across the acre or so of Italian marble and through the columned passageway to the entrance hall. A cold draft of air flooded down the walls. His pulse was beating high, but his mind was clear and cold, mapping out the swiftest route to the Duke of Olympia’s mansion on Park Lane at half past nine o’clock on a Wednesday evening, when the streets about the grandest ball in years would be piled deep with eager carriages, and then calculating what he should do when he arrived there. Sweep through the door and demand entrance, or else slip around to the back garden and seek her out from the discreet shadows.
The door was already flung open before him. He throttled down the hall almost at a run, past liveried footmen with trays of untouched champagne, past that damned suit of armor that Southam had insisted on bringing down from one of the more remote ducal outposts and installing there. His mind was buzzing so acutely he hardly noticed the pair of elegant silver slippers that appeared at the far end of his vision.
He heard a gasp behind him.
He looked forward and came to a dead stop.
In the more logical recesses of his mind, he knew this apparition was Stefanie. Above her silver mask, her pale forehead rose up in exactly that familiar way, high and smooth; her chin came to that perfect point he loved to kiss; her bare shoulders, her carriage, the glimpse of auburn hair that showed at the edge of her silver hood, crowned by a glittering spray of brilliants: They were all exquisitely Stefanie.
But this. This glorious gown, shot with moonlight, swirling about her curving figure. That long and slender cape, that filmy luminescent hood framing the angular bones of her face, her silver mask festooned with sleek white feathers. She was a spirit, a fairy, a darling sprite. She was magic itself, floating into his father’s house in Belgrave Square as if to flood every cold and rotten corner with her light.
Including him.
Like Hatherfield, she had come to a stop. She stood about six or seven feet away, and her smile curved like a pink crescent moon below her mask.
Hatherfield was vaguely aware of the crowd gathering behind him. He didn’t give a damn. His smile kept on growing and growing, until it threatened to split his face in two.
She smiled back.
He sank into a deep bow, straightened, and took two steps forward.
“Your Royal Highness,” he said, under his breath.
“Your lordship.” Her voice trembled with laughter.
He held out his hand. “I believe the first dance is mine.”
Stefanie laid her white-gloved hand in his, and his fingers closed warmly around hers. How he loved her firm grasp, her unshakable optimism. Everything became possible when Stefanie’s hand lay in his.
“If you must,” she said.
The orchestra was just starting up another echoing waltz. Somewhere in the periphery of his sight, the other dancers were melting away in astonishment; somewhere at the far range of his hearing, the guests were whispering, and above them the querulous voice of the Duchess of Southam shrilled upward with the question: Who the devil is she?
But this all occurred at a great distance, in another universe from the one he occupied with Stefanie. He led her to the center of the floor and placed his hand at her waist, and without a word they spun into the first measures of the waltz. Her cape floated around them, a beat or two behind.
“You are the most beautiful woman in the world,” he said, after a minute or two, when he could speak at last.
“Only with a mask on, apparently.”
“You are beautiful any way and every way, but especially in that spectacular gown, with your eyes peeking through your mask, laughing at me.”
“Shh. Everyone’s staring.”
“Let them stare.” He twirled her again, almost giddy with the magic of her, the cheerful way she followed his movements, the exquisite knowledge of oneness with a well-matched partner. He gathered her a fraction closer and said, near her ear, “Marry me. Marry me tonight.”
She laughed. “You’re impossible. For one thing, we haven’t a license.”
“I’ll find us one, if I have to break into the Bishop of London’s bedroom and wake him myself. I don’t want to sleep again until you’re my wife.”
“And you call me impetuous.”
He loved the feel of her waist under his hand. “You haven’t said no.”
“I haven’t said yes.”
The waltz melted into another, and the two of them danced on without a pause. Hatherfield was vaguely aware that they had been joined by a few other couples, and then a few more, and when he could no longer swirl his princess about without knocking elbows with one or another of his sisters’ husbands, he simply swirled her out of the room entirely and through the French doors into the garden.
“Oh no.” Stefanie’s words emerged in floating white clouds. “No, no. Far too cold.”
He shrugged his black tailcoat down his arms and swung it over her shoulde
rs. “Trust me. Now come along. Pay attention, there’s a dodgy step in the middle.”
The light from the ballroom lay across the terrace stones in golden rectangles. Beyond lay the murky garden and the shadows of the neighboring houses, the irregular pattern of illuminated windows. Hatherfield took Stefanie’s hand and drew her along the width of the house until he reached the narrow wrought-iron staircase that spiraled upward to the library.
“Where are we going?” she whispered.
“Where we can be private.”
She shimmered up the stairs before him. The rustle of her cape as it trailed along the metal made his blood hurtle in his veins. He caught a glimpse of the side of her throat, just above the collar of his tailcoat, and his heart hollowed into air.
She was his. Actually his. How was that possible?
When they reached the balcony, he slipped ahead of her and tried the door handle. It rattled without effect.
“I don’t suppose you have a key?” Stefanie said hopefully.
He turned and reached around her hair, beneath the hood, fingers spearing gently through the silken strands.
“Oh! Mind the pins!” she exclaimed. “I had the most awful trouble securing that hood by myself . . . oh, I say!”
He drew out a pin and kissed it reverently.
“I hope you mean to return that,” she said.
He inserted the pin into the lock, and an instant later the handle gave way. He opened the door and stood back to wave her inside, but instead she took him by the face and kissed him. He staggered backward into the darkened library, his arms full of Stefanie, laughing and kissing at the same time.
She lifted her lips away for a second. “That was marvelous.” Another kiss. “Do it again.”
“What, kiss you?”
“No. The lock. My entire life, I’ve longed to know how to pick a lock. Will you show me?”
“Absolutely not. I happen to have another lock in mind. Far more intricate. Mysterious. Devilishly clever.”
She unbuttoned his waistcoat and ran her hands along his sides to his back. She looked up at him from beneath her decadent eyelashes and purred, “As bothersome as that? I can’t imagine why you trouble yourself.”
“Because of the treasure on the other side, of course.” He slipped his fingers beneath her silvery bodice and closed his eyes in wonder at the plump welcome of her breast, the delicate hardness of her nipple. “A man might endure any hardship to taste such riches.”
“He might fight off armed attackers in the middle of the night?”
“In an instant.”
“He might fish a clumsy clerk out of an icy river at dawn?”
“With utmost dispatch.”
“He might wash a woman with a bucket of soapy water and his own bare hands before the sun rises?”
“Every morning. Except on Sundays, perhaps, when a proper respect for the Almighty demands a genuine bathtub.”
She laughed and put her arms around his neck. “I adore you. How do you manage it?”
“Manage what?”
“To be so full of life. To be you.”
He reached inside her hood and untied her mask, placing it carefully on the round table next to the lamp, and then he eased the hood down to expose her short, newly freed auburn hair to the dim light. Such alluring shiny hair, curling just slightly around her ears. He lifted a strand or two and rubbed it between his fingers. “Because I have no choice, have I? One carries on regardless.”
She turned her head and kissed his palm. The light caught a tiny glitter in her eyes. “Yes,” she said.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, I’ll marry you. Whenever you like. However you like. I don’t care, as long as I’m your wife.”
“And the good people of Holstein-Schweinwald-Huhnhof? They won’t mind?”
She smiled. “They’ll love you.”
He went on touching her silken hair, absorbing her ardent smile. As if the angels in heaven were bestowing this blessing on him, redeeming his tattered soul in an act of undeserved grace.
“My wife.” Two small words, electric on his tongue. Warm around his heart.
Stefanie made a little tremor. Her blue eyes went round. “Did you feel that?”
“Yes.”
“As if . . . as if it happened, right there. As if you bound us, just by saying it aloud.”
Hatherfield kissed the hair in his fingers, and then he kissed her. “I believe, in certain cultures, that’s all it takes.”
His heart was pounding in a strong and confident rhythm. He placed a last kiss on her lips and walked to the magnificent paneled door, which stood just ajar. He looked out into the empty hallway. A lilting music drifted up from the staircase, a bustle of laughter and animated voices. He closed the door firmly and turned the lock.
Stefanie stood in the center of the room, resplendent and smiling, her hair glowing in a reddish halo from the lamp behind her. She held out her arms, and every bone in his body ached with desire.
In three long strides, he stood before her. He bent down and lifted her in his arms and carried her to the blue damask chaise longue that occupied the alcove overlooking the garden.
He placed her carefully on the cushions and settled himself above her.
“This is very naughty,” she whispered.
“Singularly daring.”
“And quite dangerous. Anyone might come in.”
He was trailing kisses along the upper curve of her bosom. “Only the butler and my father have the key. And no one can see us from the door.”
She craned her neck to verify this observation, and Hatherfield seized the opportunity to kiss the tender hollow beneath her ear. “There’s something I want to do with you,” he said softly.
She lay there with her head still turned, her neck still exposed. She closed her eyes, as if savoring his caress. “What’s that?” she whispered.
“I want to taste you.”
A throaty little laugh. “But you are tasting me. Am I delicious?”
His hands drifted downward and drew up her skirts, her petticoats. She wasn’t wearing drawers. He ran his hand up her bare leg. “I want to taste you here.”
She gasped. “Oh.”
“Would you like that, Stefanie?” His forefinger eased inside her snug channel. She closed around him, wet and hot, and her hips moved restlessly beneath him. “May I kiss you here?”
“I can’t imagine . . .”
“But I have. I’ve imagined it daily.” He kissed her mouth, her chin, down her throat, down the silken crevasse between her breasts. He slid down between her legs and lifted her skirts high, parting her silvery gossamer skirt and her frothy petticoats and her transparent chemise.
She shivered as the cool air brushed her skin. Her hands found his hair. “Hatherfield,” she whispered.
With his finger, he touched her auburn curls, the precious hood covering her hidden jewel, the delicate lips shining with arousal. Her warm feminine scent settled into his nose. “You’re perfect,” he said. He pressed his lips on her. He’d never done this to any woman. He wasn’t quite sure where to start, where to begin sampling the riches before him. Stefanie lay quite still, her fingers latched in his hair, but he felt the rapid pulse of her breathing, nudging them both. Her legs rested uncertainly on either side of his shoulders.
He kissed her again and ran his tongue along her seam, from top to bottom.
Her hips jumped up from the cushion, her hands tightened in his hair. “Hatherfield!”
He swirled his tongue around her opening and darted inside, and out, and inside again.
“Hatherfield!” Breathless this time.
He lifted her legs and slipped them onto his shoulders, bringing her closer to his mouth, holding her secure so she couldn’t thrash free. He ignored his own rock-hard arousal and explored her with a patient tongue. Each lick had its own effect, each stroke coaxed its own sound from her throat, and he wanted to know them all, he wanted to know exactly what she liked bes
t, and how she liked it. A rhythm developed, back and forth between them, and her noises deepened into sobs, into half-coherent begging, while his tongue circled the bundle of sweet nerves at her center, lazy and then quick, and she was lifting her hips to meet him. She was going to spend, he could actually feel the trembling pressure beneath his tongue, and he brought his hand around her leg and inserted one finger into her wet slit while he sucked her softly above.
“Hatherfield!”
Her shout rattled the bookshelves as she came and came in rapid pulses around his finger, the sweetest climax, on and on. He was drowning in her, lapping her up, her salty tang of release, and all he could think was beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
She sagged slowly downward. He followed her. The lace edges of her petticoats tickled his cheeks, and her hands released his hair at last.
He lifted his head and saw the tip of her chin pointing upward to the ceiling fresco, at the far end of her heaving silver chest. He prowled upward along her limp body. The lamplight glowed along the side of her face, casting her cheeks in shadow, but no shadow could hide the telltale pink glow on the skin of a well-loved woman.
God, he loved that flush.
“Well?” he asked.
“My . . . my goodness.”
“Open your eyes.”
She opened them.
“Stefanie. Little one. That was the single most exciting act of my life.”
“I didn’t—” Her flushed skin grew even more delightfully pink, but she didn’t look away, not Stefanie. “I never even imagined.”
He lowered his head and kissed her again, and then he pulled down the bodice of her dress and freed one perfect breast. “I want you to let your imagination run free, love. I want to make love to you in every way possible. I want to know what you want, to . . .”
A small noise jarred the still atmosphere of the library.
In a single smooth movement, Hatherfield pulled up Stefanie’s bodice and leapt to his feet in front of the chaise.
Lady Charlotte Harlowe stood in the center of the room, her face white beneath her pale pink mask. A small key dangled from her right hand.
“Lady Charlotte. Good evening.” Behind him, Stefanie was rustling quietly, arranging her clothes. He folded his arms and planted his massive legs like two protective trunks into the ancient Kilim rug before the chaise.
