One Night Is Never Enough

by Anne Mallory

  “No, I mean, people will notice us.”

  There was something dark and completely visible in his eyes before it cleared, and only amusement remained. “You think someone will peer under my hood? See if there is a face beneath?”

  She wanted the banter. She wanted him. But the wariness that had been creeping upon her had sunk in its claws. Rational thought, which had been far too long missing, pushed through. “No, but even if it takes weeks, it is a game for the ton to identify those beneath the disguises. Rarely does anyone remain anonymous for long.” She threw a hand to his costume. “All it takes is for someone to bribe the butler who read your invitation.”

  He smiled lazily and fished a paper from the dark cloak. “Would it do your reputation ill to be seen dancing with”—his eyes dropped to the vellum—“Mr. Reginald Barton then?”

  Her lips parted, then pressed together. “You stole his invitation.”

  “Borrowed. Borrowed, Charlotte.” The lazy smile was still about his lips, but there was something tight in his eyes. “I have my own invitation, but I knew you wouldn’t want to be seen with me.”

  “That’s . . . that’s not it.” Pride stiffened her spine. She wasn’t a snob.

  “I can dance with a maid and one or two of the courtesans as well, if you’d like. People who we can be assured will keep their silence if any of them figures out who I am. Women of my kind.” He flashed a smile. She couldn’t smile back though.

  “Come Charlotte, you’re not frightened, are you?”

  Her stiff pride told her to respond in the negative. “A little, yes.”

  He bowed low over her hand, his hood swinging back down to cover him completely from her view as his lips lingered on her clothed knuckles. “Don’t be. I will take care of things.”

  And she wanted to believe him. Did believe him. That was the problem. That was always the problem.

  “Come, my Charlotte.” Death tugged her from the shadows and into the moving bodies. “I can play nice.”

  And, indeed, he did seem to know all of the proper steps for the waltz, smoothly leading. Though there was something a little too earthy, a little too sensual to his movements. It made her heart beat faster. Leading her in a three-beat rhythm that far too closely mimicked thrust, pause, release.

  “I told you I can play nice,” he whispered far too close to her ear, his body automatically pulling hers toward his, closer than was deemed acceptable.

  “I hardly think your mauling is nice.” She felt hot, out of control, not nice.

  He smiled, but he did increase the space between them. It simply made her body strain toward his, like magnets too near to each other.

  “How is that, oh prudish one?”

  Fantastic. Wonderful. Never let me go.

  “Adequate. Where did you learn to dance?” she asked.

  “Ratcliff Highway.”

  “Very amusing.”

  “You’d be amazed at what you can pick up in the rookery,” he said casually, his voice picking up a stronger cadence for a second, chopping and slurring the last words.

  She watched him steadily through her mask. He looked every bit as relaxed as he usually did, but there was a slight tightening of the dancing turns, no pause in evidence for a few steps. Thrust, break, pull.

  And then he was twirling her about again as if nothing had happened, the intimate dance regained. Thrust, pause, release.

  “I never realized Death was so fleet of foot.”

  “The fleetest. Always dancing in the shadows.”

  “Always waiting for his next partner?”

  “Dancing through a long list until he finds the perfect one.” His voice was like the drink he always kept stocked—hot and strong, invigorating and calming at the same time.

  She wanted to see his eyes. So badly in that moment that she literally yearned for it.

  He twirled her. “You spent quite a long time with Trant. I wasn’t sure you’d ever separate.”

  She dipped her head to hide her pleased expression at his tone and looked at him again with a calm gaze.

  “One would think you jealous, Mister Barton.”

  His teeth flashed, and the hand gripping hers stretched, thumb curving along the inside of her wrist and stroking there. “Terribly jealous. Beastly.”

  “You have no reason to be.” Her voice hitched.

  A finger stroked a long, deep line. They were in the middle of the floor, dear God, and he was touching her familiarly. “That is good to know. I didn’t realize you had accepted the inevitable.”

  She couldn’t help asking the question, her body demanding things her mind was screaming no to. “What is the inevitable?”

  He leaned down, pulling out the pause of the rhythm half a beat too long, the rhythm pulling back against them. “That you are mine.”

  She had no idea if there were other people near them, if her sleeve was brushing someone else’s, if they were narrowly avoiding collision after collision, if he had swept her off the floor completely, and they were someplace else. Because her entire focus was on him. She couldn’t see anything past him. Anything to the left or the right.

  Dangerous. Deadly. Literally. Figuratively. In every way.

  “As much as it tickles me to be out here, dancing with their princess underneath their noses, I’d rather have that princess naked and writhing beneath me.”

  Her traitorous body continued to respond, giving an affirmative reply to his words.

  His hand tightened upon her back. “In fact, there is a perfect little room beyond the retiring rooms, around the corner, three back on the left. A perfect place to despoil a goddess.”

  Her body leaned across the space separating them, then pulled back sharply, to keep the distance between them, even as the words curled and made her body respond.

  She had to remember where the devil she was.

  She looked into his shadowed hood. Perhaps not so much Death in front of her as something far darker.

  “No.”

  “No?” A wicked smile crossed his face, visible beneath the edge of his hood. The music came to a close, and she wondered if he would release her. Or if he would continue to hold her on the floor and never let her go. He bowed over her hand. “I have a feeling that you will find the way.”

  He disappeared into the crowd.

  “Who was that, my dear?”

  Charlotte started as Trant moved into her view. When she was near Roman, everything else became a blur. Here, where he could mingle with others, he was deadly to her. Death waiting to snuff her reputation. Her position. Emily’s future.

  “I believe that was quite possibly the Hannings’ main footman. Though he’d have me believe he is the King.” She moved to the edge of the floor in measured strides.

  “Perhaps I should speak with him?”

  Charlotte shrugged. “If you’d like. He is probably over yonder.” She waved negligently toward the crush of people near the terrace doors.

  Trant watched her, weighing her words against her cool expression. She watched him calmly, blood racing inside.

  “Perhaps you’d care to dance again, Miss Chatsworth?”

  She wanted to be around the corner from the retiring room, three doors back on the left.

  “Of course.”

  Trant danced more closely to her this time. Though he strained away too—the edge of his movements showing two different desires.

  All the while, her body leaned toward a back room.

  As they turned, she saw her mother, Marquess Binchley, John Clark, Bethany Case, and any number of anonymous young women in pink or white. Women in red and gold.

  Married women standing entirely too close to men who were not their husbands. Married men dancing attendance on women of the same. The way of her world. Political and social matches with little emotion involved. Entirely acceptable for her in a few years’ time, as long as she was discreet.

  Then she thought of Miranda and Downing . . . the perfect pair, never needing to play that game,
always having each other. A real marriage.

  She pushed the thoughts roughly aside. Not for her. Never for her. Her father had made sure of that. She could only grasp the hope of the future.

  As long as she was discreet . . .

  As long as she didn’t get caught red-handed. For even she, as an unmarried woman, knew the identities and pairings of many of the married women and men who had relationships on the sly. Open secrets. Acceptable as long as one was circumspect.

  Though . . . though it might never be acceptable with Roman. Not in this arena. She would still need to keep a relationship with him secret.

  Would still have to end things with him upon marriage, hoping that in a few years . . .

  She swallowed, responding automatically to Trant’s queries and comments, while keeping the space between them set and firm.

  As soon as she was able, she slipped away, not able to stand it another minute. Knowing what awaited her in the back.

  Pleasure and doom.

  There were women coming out of the retiring room, so she coolly smiled and entered, then waited a moment and walked out, anticipating that she might have to repeat the actions if guests were in the hall. But the hall was blessedly empty. A strike of fortune. She quickly walked forward and turned the curve.

  There was a small alcove ahead, but this hall was far more likely to be empty, and anyone who would be in the alcove would have had to have been waiting. Only Bethany—or Trant—would have such foresight, and Charlotte had just seen both in the ballroom.

  She looked over her shoulder. The hall was still clear. She touched the handle to the third door on the left, fingers shaking slightly, as they always did when she slipped away. Waiting for someone to jump out. Waiting for the inevitable to happen.

  The handle turned, and she pushed the door ajar, walking inside. The door closed behind her, and a lock slid into place.

  A warm body pressed her against the wall, warm hands pulling her head and mouth to his. Eyes unadjusted to the dark, all she could do was feel him.

  “A small detour with Trant?” he whispered against her lips.

  She wondered how long Roman had waited in the ballroom and where he had been standing.

  “He asked me to dance again. He wanted to know who you were.”

  “The death of him.” Roman’s hand lifted her dress, his fingers slowly touched her. She could make out the curve of his lips, obviously pleased at what he discovered. “I wonder what he would do were I to muss you beyond all recall? Sending you back out with red cheeks, crimson lips, flushed chest. Gloriously debauched.”

  “He would likely expire.” Her breath hitched as he touched her perfectly, repeatedly, exactly as he had mastered weeks ago. “One moment before I did.”

  “Then I could sweep you away,” he whispered in her ear. “Never let you go.”

  She said nothing, letting the thought of it wash over her, burning her, making her arch against him, his hand moving deliciously. The picture they would make if anyone would walk in, a cloaked man with his hand thrust up her white skirt and she arching back against the wall, likely ruining her coiffure, screwing the strands free.

  “Do you know what I’m going to do to you, Charlotte?”

  “Yes.”

  How could she not know? She had been living in this fantasyland for weeks now. Weeks since he had come through her window. Nights drenched in revelation and wonder. Relief and tension.

  “Do you?” His lips attached to her neck, just for a moment. Her heart beat furiously. She trusted him not to make a mark. Trusted him far too much.

  “I’m going to press you against this wall. And you aren’t going to be able to walk for a week.”

  She pressed against him as he lifted her, her voice coming out in pants. “Oh?” Her covered breasts slid across his covered chest. He was still fully clothed, but she knew from experience that stopped nothing. Her head hit the wall as he slid into her, suddenly, firmly, roughly, fully.

  Yes. Every week. Every night.

  “And you are going to know exactly who put that hitch in your step.” Pinned to the wall, his hands around her backside, lifting her onto him, beyond strong, using her back and shoulders against the wall as if he would split her in two. A lovely, lovely death.

  Why couldn’t she have this? Him?

  “Me.” He pulled out almost entirely and thrust in again—and, God, she felt like she might die from it—as he touched something deep inside. Overwhelming heat stole over her entire body.

  “Yes.” Her hands curled around his neck, and she arched her back a little more, digging her shoulders in, letting him have anything he wanted.

  She arched partially out of her gown. The tip of one breast scraped the roughness of his chin. He sucked it between his lips, and she writhed back, pushing down on him, hindering his movement for a second below as she pushed back hard, grinding against him.

  “Mine.” His eyes were fierce, and he wasn’t a restrained man, but there was a core that was protective and almost gentle, beneath it all. Never frightening her with anything but her own feelings for him. He lifted and pulled her down against him again, claiming her, and she felt the lift, the stamping inside her. Not long. The wave raced toward her.

  Why couldn’t she have him?

  “Always.” She realized she said it out loud, whispered it. But there was nothing that she could do about the admission as his eyes sharpened. It was infinitesimal, but he paused before his withdrawal, the wave still racing toward her. He didn’t say a word, but he pressed slowly into her so deeply that she saw stars and forgot how to breathe. He did it again—a deep, penetrating, slow movement that cracked her world.

  And she was breaking apart as he slid along the inside of her, almost gently—if there was such a thing as fiercely gentle—over and over, his hands in her hair, his mouth drinking in her cries.

  He held her to him, his forehead pressed against hers. Then he kissed her again, long and lingering. “I should have stolen you later this evening when there would be no need to return you.”

  “You want to keep me all night?”

  “And maybe even into the next.” He was still within her, and she couldn’t help the clench. His fingers gripped her shoulders.

  She looked at him from under lazy lids as they disentangled themselves and righted their clothes. “I think people might notice my absence. I don’t think the ‘tell Mother I’m going with the Downings’ and ‘tell the Downings I’m going with Mother’ gambit would work tonight.”

  He smiled as he smoothed down her dress. “I love that maneuver though.”

  “I know you do,” she said wryly, removing a pin from her crown, smoothing her hair, then pinning it back in place.

  He took the next one from her, and she let him. He always knew how to put her back together again. “Classic switch. Simple, useful. And easily believed. The two parties hardly exchange greetings, and you’ve already put the assumption in people’s minds that if you aren’t with one, you are with the other.”

  “But dangerous to use too often. I am sure Miranda knows.”

  “Of course she does,” he whispered into her hair. “And that just means that you have her approval.”

  Dangerous words, winding down to her core.

  He tweaked her knife as he straightened the rest of her.

  “Jealous?” she asked lightly.

  “Of your ability to unman someone who flirts with you? Immensely.”

  She smiled and pressed a hand against her chest, willing the color down.

  “Do you wish me to open a window?” he asked.

  “No. I’ll just let you amuse me for a moment more.”

  He backed up to lean against the back of the settee, and she had to withhold the elated smile, the knowledge, that he did so in order to resist his impulses. That he would touch her otherwise—like a call he couldn’t resist.

  “Like a court jester?”

  “Like the one in Sam’s naughty picture on the wall.”

&n
bsp; The edge of his mouth lifted. “Why, Charlotte, I’m shocked.”

  “Are you? Does that mean you won’t consider attempting the movements within?” she asked innocently, pleasure running through her at the heat flaring again in his eyes.

  “If I had known you wanted to enact that scene, I would have used the bloody desk over there in the manner it should be employed.” He pushed back to a standing position. “In fact . . .”

  “You think I’ll make it easy?” She smiled at him, knowing that her color had receded enough to return to the gathering. She walked backward, disengaged the lock behind her back, and wrapped her hand around the door handle. “The jester pushing up the queen’s skirts? You’ll have to catch me first.”

  She turned the handle, peeked into the hall, then ducked out, pulling the handle down as she closed the door.

  A small, secret smile curved her lips. He could have caught her if he had wanted. But that he hadn’t just made it more exciting for next time. Another experience to look forward to.

  She touched the back of her hair, her smile growing. He always knew how to pin it—as if he’d memorized everything about her. She tried to keep her grin from going silly, knowing she’d have to check it in the retiring room, just to make sure. But she always felt she could take on the world after she saw him like this. The euphoria beating through her. Nothing able to touch her.

  “Well, well, well,” an unwelcome voice said. “Miss Chatsworth . . . using the back rooms.”

  Chapter 15

  Charlotte froze. She hadn’t even thought of safety a moment ago, too busy wanting to play. Roman usually scouted exits in advance. But she’d been careless. Caught in the euphoria.

  Affairs were hard work. No wonder people were so frequently discovered.

  She was about to be ruined. Emily’s chances dashed. She had always known the consequences of her actions, yet her emotions had simply bypassed any and all sense.

  “So the rumors have it true.” John Clark rolled around the corner alcove and leaned against the shadowed wall, smiling. “I can’t believe my luck.”

  Charlotte turned to face Clark, left hand still frozen, fingers curling tightly around the metal handle. Stupid. Her mind so caught up in Roman that she hadn’t thought.