by Bec McMaster
"Oh, I must have forgotten to mention that!" Gemma's eyes widened in mock surprise. "Want to come and watch her spectacles fog up when she realizes where she is?"
Ingrid frowned, then pushed her way out of her chair. "I'll come, if only to keep the rest of you from leading her too far afield."
"Excellent." Gemma spun toward the door, shooting one last glance back over her shoulder. "But I'm going to have to insist upon a dress, darling."
* * *
"ANOTHER?" Charlie Todd blinked as he leaned on the table and stared her down.
Ingrid allowed herself the faintest of smiles. "Give in before I drink you under this table."
"I can hold me drink...." He blinked again. "Hell and damnation, are you even feeling it? You look so bloody cool and collected."
"I'm verwulfen, Charlie," she replied, dragging her small cheroot case out of her reticule. "Alcohol burns through me like it's been set on fire."
"B-burns through me too," he declared, finding his feet and swaying a little. "But not that bloody quickly. Here. I'll fetch another bottle." He wove away through the crowd, swaying slightly, as he joined Gemma at the bar.
"Amateur," Kincaid sniffed, and threw back his glass. Considering the fact that he was purely human, his steadiness was impressive, as he wasn't far behind either her or Charlie. Seeing her considering look, and interpreting it correctly, he arched a brow. "Experience counts, love."
"There's experience," she countered, "and then there's the type of man who's drunk enough in his lifetime to earn some sort of immunity."
"Every man here's got his own demons," he said, stirring his finger through the sticky ring of brandy on the table. "And ways to deal with it. I had a few bad years a while ago."
"It's not going to be a problem, is it?"
Kincaid's blue eyes glittered as they locked on her. "Are you and Byrnes going to be a problem?"
Touché. Ingrid shrugged as she lit a cheroot, and breathed it in. The last thing she needed was Malloryn getting wind of this. She needed the money too much. "That's none of your concern."
"Not mine, no." His gaze slid sideways as the swish of skirts hurried up to the table. "But if I were a betting man, it might be someone else's."
Ava slid into the seat beside Ingrid, breathless in green silk. "Did you know that there are fire-breathers in the back room? This place is... extraordinary."
That was one way of putting it. At the front of the room, the crowd thinned as attendants wearing only tweed vests, tight pants, and bowler hats cleared some space. A sheet was dragged across the stage, but her attention was focused on Ava, and Kincaid's words.
She liked Ava. And she obviously wasn't the only one who'd noticed how the pretty laboratory assistant lit up when Byrnes entered the room, which left Ingrid feeling like slime coated her skin.
"Shadow Show's starting," Kincaid said, his voice like liquid velvet in the night, and again, they were on the same wavelength.
Ingrid had rather hoped Ava would stay enamored with the fire-breathers a little longer.
"Ladies and gentleman." A tall woman wearing a ringmaster's attire strode onstage as the lights dimmed, and instantly the room fell quiet. "The lovely Miranda and Cozette are about to begin their act. Do we have any volunteers to assist them?"
Over two dozen men threw themselves to their feet, waving their arms.
"Pick me, ma'am!"
"I volunteer!"
A chorus of enthusiastic cries rolled around the room, leaving only their table untouched.
Kincaid looked unimpressed and poured himself another brandy as a spotlight suddenly flicked on behind the sheet, highlighting a bed.
"You're not keen to volunteer?" Ingrid murmured.
"Do I look like I'm the fucking entertainment?" He held out his hand, and she passed him her cheroot, which he took a long drag from. "I prefer... something a little more private." His gaze lit on the long-legged beauty in the ringmaster's outfit.
"What must he do?" Ava asked, as a young man was helped onto the stage, thrusting a fist in the air in victory toward his rowdy table.
Ingrid looked at Kincaid. Kincaid looked back at her, and actually appeared to blush.
Coward. "He's, ah, they're going to engage in—"
"Oh, my goodness," Ava whispered, staring at the stage. "Are they...." Her mouth fell open as the shadows moved, and it became very clear that yes, yes they were. "Is that even legal?" she gasped, as the two curvaceous women dragged the willing young fellow behind the sheet.
Kincaid eyed the fellow's rampant excitement as one of the shadows pushed the fellow down on the bed. "Probably not."
Ava blushed to the roots of her hair, but tore her gaze away. "Oh, my goodness."
Ingrid shot Kincaid a look, who returned it steadily. Then he handed back Ingrid's cheroot and sighed. "Would you care to take a stroll in the gardens, Miss McLaren?"
"Is it going to be any safer out there?"
"Possibly." Kincaid's smile turned slightly evil. "But then, you'll be with me, so possibly not."
Onstage the female shadow crawled up over the ecstatic young volunteer, and Ava staggered to her feet. "Yes! Yes, the garden would be good."
"I deserve a medal for this," Kincaid murmured in Ingrid's ear as he rolled to his feet and extended an arm toward Ava.
"Be nice to her," Ingrid warned, and it wasn't entirely playful.
Kincaid rolled his eyes. "Virgins," he said, in some disgust.
And then they were gone.
Ingrid stayed to watch the show. A swift glance showed Charlie caught up at the bar, laughing at something that another young man was saying. The play onstage didn't interest her overly much, but if she closed her eyes and listened to the soft sounds of laughter and panting, then she could imagine she was elsewhere.
In Byrnes's bed, her thighs straddling him as she bent down to take his nipple between her teeth.
That got her going. Half memory. Half dream. Soft fingers of heat trailed through her abdomen and lower, leaving her wet as the man onstage gasped. Then she was sliding lower, down the chiseled ridge of his abdomen, as Byrnes flexed beneath her, his wrists bound to the bed with her stockings.
"Touch yourself," he rasped.
And Ingrid smiled, rearing up to tug at the ribbons on the chemise as they trailed between her full breasts. "Oh, Byrnes... who said you were in control?"
A shiver ran over her skin. A sense of foreboding. Ingrid stubbed her cheroot out, exhaling the smoke. She felt like she was being watched.
Opening her sleepy eyes, she had a moment of disorientation, as though she were in the dream again, reliving that memory. But as Byrnes prowled the edge of the room, his gaze locked on her, she realized it wasn't a dream. Nor a memory.
But the man himself.
* * *
GIVING IN TO TEMPTATION, Byrnes trailed his fingertips along Ingrid's shoulders as he slid into the chair next to her, ignoring the stage with its enthusiastic noises. "Where was my invitation?"
"You weren't around," she replied, the sudden stiffening of her spine belying the easy way she'd been sitting with Kincaid and Charlie until he showed up.
And didn't that get to him.
Watching her laughing and drinking with the other men had set him close to the edge. Because she didn't behave like that around him. No, there was always some sort of tension in her whenever they shared a room.
It was his own bloody fault too. He'd not considered how frustrating this would be. Not so much in a sexual manner, though there was that too, but returning to Baker Street with the expectation of running into Ingrid and starting some kind of teasing debate, and then not finding her there....
"See something you like?" he asked, glancing toward the stage. There was not a chance in hell he was going to admit his conflicted feelings.
“Not yet,” she replied.
“Liar.”
She smiled faintly.
Despite the rowdy shouts throughout the room, and the ensuing climax onstage,
they might as well have been alone. Byrnes reached out and traced his fingers down the back of her hand. She didn't pull away, but she didn't encourage it.
And he didn't know what to do about that.
Withdrawing his hand with a wry smile in her direction, he leaned his arms along the back of his chair and two neighboring ones, creating just enough of an illusion of distance to make her settle. There was an uncomfortable knot in his abdomen. He shouldn't have come. But the second Herbert had told him where they'd all gone, he'd wanted to. He'd even looked forward to it, to seeing her, taking some time to reconnect with her after a day apart. She'd enjoyed his kiss, but had it only been the heat of the moment?
“Find anything today?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she replied, in a disgruntled voice. “And you?”
“Same.”
Silence fell, and her gaze locked on the stage. Was this affliction something only he felt?
Suddenly he couldn't handle it anymore.
"I need some fresh air." The chair legs squealed on the floor as he stood.
Byrnes was halfway across the room before he realized he was being followed. Those sharp rapping heels alerted him to her identity, a second before Ingrid shoved him into a dark corner at the back of the room. "What was that?"
Byrnes glanced around. Nobody watching. "Nothing."
"You're the one who fled with his tail tucked between his legs."
That irked him. "Maybe I'm weary of being left out in the cold. You clearly didn't want my company. So I complied with your unspoken demand."
"I didn't want you to...." Ingrid pursed her lips together, then looked down, at the hand pressed against his chest.
"Didn't want me to what?" Byrnes captured it, and pinned it there, so that she could feel the beat of his heart. Come on, damn you.
Ingrid's eyes flared with heat as the pressure on his chest eased. "I shouldn't do this right now. I've been drinking."
"Don't go." He held her hand there, the words blurting out of him. At her arched brow, he cursed under his breath. "Nothing's going to happen tonight. Not if you've been drinking. I promise I won't touch you."
"How gentlemanly of you."
But she relaxed. And it felt like a kick in the guts.
"If you don't want this, Ingrid," he growled, "then tell me. And this ends. Now. Tonight. I keep thinking you're enjoying having me chase you, but then"—he let her hand go, gestured to her—"your spine practically acquires an iron rod whenever I walk into a room. And if I get too close to you, you push me away. If you don't want me, then say so."
Ingrid looked away. "You make me nervous."
Which was not what he'd expected her to say. Byrnes sorted through the words. Then again. And then a smile curved over his mouth as he began to understand them. "In what way?"
She buffeted him in the arm. "Stop smirking at me."
But all of the tension between them was gone.
Thank God. He wasn't the only one who was afflicted with this... issue. "That's not an answer."
Ingrid rolled to the side, resting her back against the wall and closing her eyes. “You make me nervous because I’m not entirely certain I trust your intentions.”
“I—”
She waved his words away. “But I trust that you want me, more than you’re willing to compromise that.”
He brushed a strand of honey-brown hair behind her ear, resting the other hand on the brick wall behind her, near her hip. “Have I not proved that I’m willing to work with you? That I can compromise?”
Ingrid sighed. “That wasn’t what I was referring to.”
He examined her. “Then what—?”
“Forget it, Byrnes.” She rested her head against the brick wall, looking up at him from beneath that fan of dark lashes. “Just forget it. It’s the brandy talking.”
Byrnes studied her, his thumb stroking her ear. He wasn’t going to forget a thing, though he’d comply for the moment. “So… are you going to give me the second challenge?"
Ingrid considered it, then her eyes turned smoky with devilry. "Maybe.”
“You’ve had time to think.”
“Fine. Give me a present the likes of which no one's ever given me."
"Done." His smile widened, his thumb brushing against her cheek. Once. Twice. It didn't escape his notice that she was virtually asking him to court her. “And what do I get when I complete the challenge?”
“What do you want?”
Everything. “Don’t tempt me,” he whispered, leaning closer.
Ingrid’s gaze dropped to his mouth, almost unconsciously. He wanted to kiss her, knew she wanted it too—but he’d promised.
Byrnes withdrew, just an inch or two. “I want… to pleasure you. I want… my mouth all over you.”
Again that smile. “That sounds like a reward for me.”
“Maybe it’s a reward for both of us? You don’t know how often I’ve thought of what happened last year, of how close we came….” He couldn’t help himself. “Did you ever think of me?"
"Of course I thought of you." Her voice softened. "I'm rash sometimes, Byrnes. What I did that day—writing that poem and leaving it on your pillow, leaving you tied to the bed—it was not.... It was wrong of me, and I regret it."
Byrnes made a frustrated sound in his throat. This was not what he’d meant. "Are you actually apologizing?"
"Of course I am. I shouldn't have liked it if you'd done it to me. I was angry, and you were being your obnoxious best, and I lost my temper."
"Somehow I remember it differently."
"Really?" Her words came out more growl than speech again, but she did that when she was uncomfortable, he'd noticed, not just when she was angry.
He crossed his arms over his chest, considering his words. "It's entirely possible that I... deserved it. Sometimes I say things I don't mean." Clearing his throat, he added, "Lynch always tells me that pride will be my downfall."
"You're just saying that because you want to get under my skirts and get your revenge."
"Revenge has nothing to do with what I've in mind. I told you that."
"Oh?”
"Damn it, Ingrid. Is that all there is? All you've thought about me in the last year is regret about leaving me tied to my bed?" He reached out and rested his hand on the brickwork beside her head. "You didn't once think about what could have been? You didn't once regret the missed opportunity?"
Wary eyes gazed back at him.
"I've thought of you every day," he admitted, and that uneasy twisting sensation in his stomach made him pause. It was hard to admit this. Harder to let go of the secrets he kept hidden within him. But he needed to. "Every day." His voice softened as he saw that he had her attention. "And I looked for you. At first because, yes, I wanted revenge. Not in the way that you think. It was not your humiliation I sought, but you. What you'd promised. I wanted you. I wanted to kiss you, damn it, to taste your mouth again." His gaze dropped to her lips. Those tempting plump pillows of rose. "I dreamt of that mouth. Of all the things it could do to me. I woke up with you tangled in my mind, but missing from my bed. A perfumed ghost. And you haunted me, day and night. You got under my skin and I... I don't even know how you did it."
Ingrid's heart began to race. Byrnes closed his eyes, leaning closer to her until their foreheads pressed against each other and his hands cupped her cheeks. Giving in to temptation, he stroked her silky mouth with his thumbs. "I hate it that you didn't think of me at all." Easier to admit when he couldn't see her looking at him. He brushed his mouth against her temple. "Not like that. I hate it that whilst you haunted me, I was barely a glimmer on your horizon, a port that you'd sailed from, without a single look back."
"I thought of you." She barely breathed the words.
Did you? His heart leapt at the thought.
"And then I thought that only madness came of following those thoughts, so I pushed you out of my mind." Her hands curled around his wrists, and she ducked beneath his arm, heat flushing throug
h her cheeks. "How can I believe you? It sounds too good to be true. You're not the type of man to be tied down."
"Because I don't lie, Ingrid. You know that."
Those considering eyes killed him. But she finally nodded. "No. You don't, do you? Even if the truth is a blunt-edged weapon in your hands."
"Then hear this: this is my truth. I don't want revenge, Ingrid. I don't want forever. I just want you in my bed. I want to know what it feels like to explore that... that spark between us. I want to exorcise you from my mind, from my thoughts. That's all. I want to burn like the supernova that flames through my veins when you're nearby, and drown myself in these feelings until it's done. Until you're... extinguished from my soul."
Until I can finally forget you.
Ingrid's eyes grew dreamy, but the hesitation was still there.
"I want you," he breathed. "This needs to end between us, Ingrid. I need to burn you out of my blood, and the only way I can think to do so is to follow this through to its natural conclusion. I will complete your challenges." The words were a promise. "And you will end up in my bed. And then? Then I can forget you."
Ingrid watched him as he backed away, her eyes lost to the amber of the wild within her, her body frozen as if she both yearned to drag him back and push him away.
It was the first time he'd seen how haunted she herself appeared, and though he'd expected the sight to assuage something inside him, instead it did the opposite. The darkness within him rose, thick and choking, demanding that he go back to her.
But Byrnes turned away from it.
After all. He'd promised.
* * *
SOMEHOW SHE'D GOTTEN TURNED AROUND.
Ava swallowed hard, her fingers clenching around her reticule's handle as she slipped through the shadows. The garden looked familiar. She'd been here before with Kincaid, she was certain of it. Just as certain as she was that she was travelling in circles. Damn it. Where were the others? She'd told Kincaid that she was heading to the ladies’ refreshment rooms for a moment, but somehow she'd gotten lost.
A little chill ran down her spine, and her lungs squeezed tighter.
