Seductive Starts

by Courtney Milan

  Jenny’s heart cracked. “Ned, it’s not a test. It’s the truth.”

  “But all your predictions! Your arcane powers. How did you always know what to say?”

  “I only told you what you wanted to hear, Ned.”

  And still his eyes met hers in denial. His hands trembled. “They can’t be lies,” he said thickly. “What you told me. I need it to be true. I won’t let it be otherwise.”

  “I have been lying to you for two years. I just—I didn’t intend this.”

  Ned stared at her. “This is some kind of nightmare. Madame Esmerelda—Blakely—someone tell me I’m dreaming.” He bit his thumb and then stared at the digit, as if somehow it had betrayed him instead of Jenny.

  Jenny shook her head sadly.

  “But—if you have no powers, why is it that this chamber—”

  He stopped, registering the austerity of the room in the dim candlelight for the first time. No black cloth. No crystals. No chimes. Nothing but cheap and rickety wood furniture. No hint of the arcane any longer.

  “Your name,” he said next. “With a name like Madame Esmerelda, surely…”

  Jenny didn’t have to say anything. The realization hit him. His shoulders stiffened. His nostrils flared. He spread his hands on the table in front of him as if to steady himself. Finally, he had accepted that she was a fraud.

  Jenny knew his reactions well. And what she saw in the curl of his lip and the hunch of his shoulders wasn’t the disdain she’d feared. It was even worse.

  Because what Ned was feeling was self-loathing.

  “Ned—”

  “Don’t call me that. Don’t call me by my Christian name as if you know me.” He was trying to snuffle his tears away.

  Lord Blakely watched Ned in appalled horror.

  “Mr. Carhart.” Jenny choked on the unwieldy name. “I owe you a great debt. One that I don’t suppose I will ever repay.” She could not even look away. There was one final sentence she needed to speak.

  She owed it to Ned.

  And then there was Lord Blakely. She had few illusions about him. Right now, he knew precisely what her selfishness had wrought. She wouldn’t blame him if he never spoke with her again. Whatever he might once have thought of her, surely she’d now lost his good opinion.

  And with reason.

  If she told him her name, she might never see him again. At best, he’d stay for that one night. He would abandon her, and she couldn’t blame him for it. It was only what she deserved.

  But she’d spent all her adult life masquerading as another woman. She’d become Madame Esmerelda to run away from the options she hadn’t wanted. Until she met Lord Blakely, she’d never asked herself what she wanted to run toward. It had taken him two weeks to convince Jenny to claim herself.

  On his own merits—ridiculous, excessively rational, and undeniably attractive though they were—she owed Lord Blakely, too. Giving him her name would be the ultimate surrender. In a strange way, he’d given Jenny herself. The least she could do was give herself back to him.

  Her mouth was dry, the unformed words tasting like chalk. She forced herself to speak anyway.

  “Should you ever need me, my name—” Her voice caught.

  Lord Blakely leaned forward. There was no heat in his expression, no hint of longing. Only that blank weariness.

  “My name,” she whispered, “is Jenny Keeble.”

  Let them do with that as they willed.

  Chapter Twelve

  JENNY KEEBLE.

  Gareth held on to the promise of her name all through the oppressing drive back to the more fashionable Mayfair. Ned sat sullenly on the seat across from him, arms folded.

  Gareth repeated her name in his mind when his cousin left the carriage with a wordless nod. And when he sent his driver home, alone, to warm stables, he whispered the syllables in staccato counterpoint to the rhythm of his stride.

  Jenny. Jenny.

  In these dark hours after midnight, the streets lapsed into a silvery silence. The coppery light of gas trickled through London’s dense fog. As he approached her door for the third time that evening, the swirling mist roiled down the steps that led to basement rooms. The dense vapor stifled the sound of his shoes into muffled clops as he descended the stairs.

  He knocked.

  The mist swallowed the sullen squeak of hinges. Flat orange illumination from the streetlamps dribbled through the crack of the door as it opened. The edges of the light gilded her features into an unforgiving mask. She appeared to be a goddess cast from bronze, a statue draped in white muslin and black shadow. Gareth sucked in a lungful of cold fog.

  She swallowed and looked up into his eyes. “You’re here.”

  Gareth’s tongue seemed dry in his mouth. “Well, Jenny.” His voice creaked out, thick and husky. It was the first time he’d spoken her real name aloud.

  For moments neither moved. Then she curled her fingers about his elbow and drew him into the dark cavern of her room. Her fingertips rested on his arm as the door swung shut behind him. Slowly, he brought his hand up to her face. He could feel the tension in the solid set of her jawbone. He traced the line of her chin, found her mouth with his thumb.

  He’d wanted once to conquer her. Now he had. He’d won everything. Her admission of fraud; Ned’s surrender. She’d even given him her respect. This should have been his moment. Rationality had triumphed over illogic.

  But his fingers found the secret, sad downward curve of her lips in the darkness. No wet tracks down her cheeks. Just a stubborn, sorrowful desperation as she yielded to his touch.

  Gareth hadn’t wanted vindication after all. He’d wanted her.

  “Don’t stop.” Her hand covered his. She pressed his palm into the warmth of her face. Her fingers trembled.

  Gareth would shake his head over this inconvenient decision the next morning, but—“You’re not under any obligation because I won our little wager.” He couldn’t resist tracing her lips again.

  She stilled under his caress. “You won?” His palm swayed gently side to side as she shook her head. “No. You lost. Ned lost. You were correct, but that isn’t winning.”

  Her other hand came between them to rest against his coat. But instead of pushing him away, she leaned into him.

  Unbidden, his hand found the dark silk of her hair. “Why, then, if not obligation?”

  “I lost, too.”

  The truth seared into him. In the darkness of the night, they could pretend they had not stolen victory from each other. Her lips trembled against his touch.

  “And so what is this?”

  “Comfort,” she replied. Her breath heated the tips of his fingers. “That, and farewell.”

  Farewell. Gareth froze. He hadn’t wanted to admit it, but there was no other possibility. Not between a fraudulent fortune-teller who didn’t want to become a mistress and the Marquess of Blakely. For tonight, Lord Blakely would be set to one side. Tonight was just for Gareth and Jenny…and farewell.

  Jenny took his hand in the moonlight. She led him in the dark, into the back room, her steps sure. Just this evening, he’d taken tea at the tiny table he felt brush by his legs. Just this evening, he’d seen that bed, and had thought of her lying naked upon it.

  That contact—the feel of her warm fingers closing around his, the illusion of the whorls of her fingerprints burning into his hand and branding him—was all the greeting his body needed to leap up in recognition. You. It was not so much a word that her touch sparked, but a resonance. Like a glass goblet shivering under a soprano’s song, his soul thrilled at her touch. Yes. You.

  In Gareth’s time with this woman, he’d developed quite a vocabulary for her. Fraud. Charlatan. Madame Esmerelda. Liar.

  The quiet night swallowed all those words before he could voice them. They didn’t resonate inside him.

  Confidante. Friend. Lover. He didn’t speak these, either, but they settled into his flesh nonetheless. A mere touch on her cheek could not suffice. He pulled her into his
arms, felt her breasts press and flatten against his chest. Her breath warmed his jaw. Those unspoken syllables surrounded them both.

  After all these weeks, he had expected this kiss—the one that preceded intimacy—to shake him with lust. It would burn high and hot, like kindling. After that bright flare had burnt itself out, there would be nothing left but ash.

  Ash, and victory.

  But from the first moment his lips touched hers, he realized how wrong he had been. Her soft lips did not feel like the temporary slaking of lust, nor did they taste like a stopgap cure for the loneliness that lodged deep in his breast. Her mouth met his, sweet and trusting, even after all these weeks, after everything they’d said to each other. Her hands touched his elbows, slid up his shoulders. Her body molded against his, settling around him as close and welcome as hot bathwater.

  Their mouths melded into one. He lost himself in her taste, in the sweet scent of the breath sighing from her. The kiss was apology for deception and every harsh word. It was acceptance and understanding. It said what words could not. You. You. I want you.

  In the silent darkness, he let his body spell the truth. He wanted her. He wanted the courage of the woman who had told Ned about her deception. He wanted the intelligence that had thrown him off balance for the last few weeks.

  “Jenny,” he murmured against her lips. Her name. An incantation, a prayer.

  The kiss changed from recognition to need and hope. He hoped she might remember Gareth rather than Lord Blakely. Just as she’d divested herself of Madame Esmerelda, and had, with her kiss, become only Jenny. It was that hope that drove him to run his hands down the inviting curves of her body. He hungered for human connection. For contact, skin against skin. Soul against soul. And with Jenny, his most private name on her lips.

  Skin, flesh and soul—all three conspired, and Gareth drank in the swell of hips covered only by the thin material of her chemise. His palms molded the curves of her body, masked only by that inconsequential layer of warm muslin. The swell of her breast, the hard nub of her nipple. Up over her shoulders. He leaned his head and inhaled the scent of her neck.

  She sighed against him and ran her hands through his hair.

  His scalp tingled and fire raced through his veins.

  The last twenty-four years of Gareth’s life formed one long, lonely chain of days—strong, cold, iron links forged by the title his grandfather had held. An unbroken line of responsibility handed from father to son. It was not Lord Blakely, bound by the shackles of his title, who would join this woman.

  It was Gareth. And Jenny’s lips found his. Her mouth opened to him. Not his title. Not his money. But a man.

  Her hands, cool in the dark of the night, fumbled against his neck and untied his cravat. He restrained himself, letting her slide the cloth off his neck. It swished to the ground. It took all his willpower not to rip his own clothing off in unseemly haste. Instead, he traced a pattern against her flesh—hip to breast, pausing to outline the circle of her nipple. Then back down to hip.

  “Jenny,” he whispered into her ear.

  She shivered. She didn’t give him his name back. Instead, her hands slid down his chest, unbuttoning his jacket and then attacking his waistcoat. Gareth shrugged out of them and pulled his shirt over his head. Cool night air pebbled his skin.

  Her hands pressed against his bare chest. Each finger splayed across his torso, imprinting him with her warmth. Her scent. Desire rocked through him, and he could wait no longer.

  He picked her up, his muscles straining, and walked to her bed. There he laid her. The light was poor—a few strains of starlight, filtered through uneven panes of yellowing glass and who knew how much airborne haze. He could see the lines of her limbs illuminated beneath him, but the details—the precise color of her skin, the swell of her hips—were obscured by shadow.

  He found the soft skin of her bare knees just the same. He slid his hands up the curves of her thighs. The warmth of her limbs turned to heat as he neared the juncture between her legs. He caught the material of her chemise around his arms as his fingers skimmed higher. Breasts, soft hills topped by hard nubs, met his hands. The material gathered up around her collarbone as she adjusted her arms. And then it was over her head and she was bare, completely bare.

  Bare to his hands and his mouth. This time, instead of circling the peak of her nipple with his thumb, he caught it in his mouth, tasting the sweet pleasure of her skin. He swirled his tongue around the tightening bud. She arced off the bed, belly pressing against his abdomen. Her thighs lay a scant inch from his member.

  “Oh, God,” she moaned.

  He’d have preferred Oh, Gareth.

  He set about drawing out that precious word.

  Her hands fluttered against his bare shoulders. Her touch was as tentative as a butterfly, unsure if it should stay. Gareth tasted the light salt of her breast again, and her fingernails drove into the blades of his shoulders. She pulled him down to her. Now he sucked; he teased the end of her hard nipple with his tongue, and then with his teeth. Her hands ran slowly down his ribs, trailing fire as they did so. They found the fall of his trousers. She fumbled in the dark. He felt the fabric loosen. A few kicks, and the inconvenient material fell down his legs.

  Her hands slipped against his skin. Gareth’s heart beat wildly in anticipation. Her fingers slid around his erect member. Heat and pleasure filled him and he shut his eyes. A rising sea of lust besieged him with sensation. The warm clasp of her hand. The slide of her palm down his shaft. Here in the dark, her body pressed against his. Eager. Waiting.

  Thank God for ruined women.

  He was ruined, too. Ruined, and waiting for her to remove that last layer of pretense between them. To lift that cloak of anonymity and speak his name.

  But she did not. And so instead of spreading Jenny’s legs, he kissed his way down her body. He trailed his tongue in her navel, and she shuddered against him. He kissed her pubic bone.

  And by God, though she moaned, still his name didn’t cross her lips. He could feel her uncertain query by the tense quiver in her thighs. Her hands clutched the coverlet, bunching it into wrinkles underneath her grip. He answered the question her body asked with action. He pushed her legs apart and kissed her hot, sweet cleft. He dipped his tongue between her legs, tasting the salty sweetness of woman. She was wet and ready, but he wanted more from her than mere readiness.

  His hand crept between her legs; he slid a finger into her passage. It was tight and hot, slippery and welcoming. Her muscles clamped around him, and he added a second finger, listening to her gasp. Learning the ways of her body. He found the spot right there—the one that made her moan and arch against him when he curled his finger up in a come-hither. He leaned forward and tweaked her nipple with his spare hand, and her passage contracted around his hand, harder. Heat mounted. He bent his head and ran his tongue against the sensitive spot between her legs.

  Her body stiffened. Her passage clamped down on the fingers inside her. “Oh.” The word was wrung out of her. “Oh.” Again, and louder. Then—“Gareth.”

  His name swept through him, a sensation as primitively powerful as the strongest release. Wave after wave pulsed through them. He tasted her pleasure, felt it throb around his fingers. “Gareth,” she screamed again, and his name on her lips seemed more intimate than the physical connection he shared with her.

  She gasped so hard she could have been sobbing. Gareth was hard and erect. He levered himself over her. The erect tips of her nipples brushed his chest. She struggled up onto her elbows and kissed him. His tongue found hers. He wanted her desperately.

  You.

  The full length of his erection pressed against her belly. She spread her legs, angling her hips up toward his. As soon as her slick softness touched his member, he was lost.

  He was lost, but he was coming home.

  Her hips shifted, and the crown of his cock pushed against her body’s opening. And then she rose to meet him—he pushed against her—and he w
as sinking inch by inch into her soft, waiting flesh. She was tight, so tight, around him. Hot satisfaction gripped him. She fit. Not just her slick female passage, but her body, her hips, her breasts. His hands were of a size to cradle her head. She molded against him as if he’d been made for her. She engulfed him. He filled her.

  “Gareth,” she said again.

  “Jenny. Oh, God. Jenny.”

  The names came simultaneously. Gareth could restrain himself no longer. He took from her. He gave to her. It was an age-old dance, one more powerful and more riveting than logic. She was hot friction clasping him; sparking electricity tracing his veins.

  She was his.

  Her fingernails cut into his back. She pulled his mouth down to hers in the dark. She kissed him, and he tasted his name on her lips again. As he plunged into her, his mind filled with a coruscating fire. Heat rose around him. Beneath him, she stiffened. Her womb clamped around him in the beginning of a second release. And Gareth let himself go, let everything he had held back flood from him.

  He pulled her against him in those final moments, shielding her from the chaotic storm that raged through his body. It passed, leaving him wrung out and sated, his limbs intertwined with hers.

  He gulped for air and sanity. It was slow in coming.

  What would she say now? Even though it was his body covering hers, his chest pressing her soft curves into the mattress, it seemed that Gareth was the one who was trapped. His lungs burned with exertion. Or emotion. No matter which, he could not find his breath again. It was buried somewhere inside her, deeper even than his still-throbbing cock, clasped in her womb.

  What had he just experienced? It had been pleasure. Communion. Connection. It had been the end of a long, dark loneliness. Gareth could not bring himself to pull away from her. Because it had been everything.

  Everything, that is, except the one thing she had asked it to be.

  It hadn’t been goodbye.