by Anne Mallory
She could detect him pressing against the other side of the door, listening. A click away from emerging. Confirming that indeed she had been meeting with someone. Perhaps even going so far as to show Clark exactly who inhabited the other side of Death’s mask.
“I don’t know of what you speak, Mr. Clark,” she said with far more calm then she felt, unwilling to cede anything. “I mistakenly thought this was the retiring room and searched for light before realizing my error.” Her hand was still wrapped around the door handle, gripping it like it was the only thing holding her to the cliff.
Clark clucked. “I wouldn’t have batted an eyelash to believe that at the beginning of the season. But now . . .” His head tilted. “No. There is something different about you. Not so cold anymore, are you? Someone finally thaw out your skirts?”
The handle moved beneath her hand, bending from the other side, and only force of will kept her gripping it, forcing it back into resting position, tugging the door against its frame.
“I think you have imbibed too many spirits, Mr. Clark. You are making highly inappropriate suggestions.”
She could twirl on her heel and return to the ballroom or the retiring room. Roman was more than capable of disappearing should Clark look inside. Or of taking care of himself.
It was the latter that kept her hand wrapped around metal. Trapped, and with her hand upon the proverbial latch, as it were.
“Am I?” Clark’s smile grew. “I think we should speak more of my suggestions, Miss Chatsworth.” He tilted his head and looked at the door, then dismissed it and whoever might be behind it. “Unless you enjoy the spread of ugly rumors?”
“Blackmail?” She twisted her lips, hand firmly gripping the metal, working more fiercely to keep it in place, with physical strength she hadn’t realized she possessed. Of course, perhaps Roman realized that if he used more force to open the door, he would rip her shoulder from the socket. Hopefully he realized that. “How bourgeois.”
“Actually, blackmail hearkens back to the best of kings.” He walked to within a foot of her.
Her eyes narrowed. And she wondered why she felt all sorts of distasteful feelings at Clark’s threat yet had felt none of them when Roman had initiated his pursuit.
Because she had returned his desire, and Roman had known it.
“You won’t blackmail me,” she said flatly.
He smiled, a very confident look in his eyes, as he reached toward her. “No?”
She wasted no time or thought and with her free hand stuck her small knife directly forward, into the tender space between his thigh and crotch, just as Roman had unknowingly demonstrated earlier. A flick away. Clark froze, smile dropping, not anticipating the action in the least.
“Not if you want to be able to use it again,” she hissed.
His hands rose slowly in surrender, eyes narrowing. “You will regret this.”
“I don’t believe I will. And if you spread any rumors, I will make sure that this little scene is repeated to its conclusion.”
He backed slowly from the knife, and she felt confident enough, knowing Roman was on the other side of the door, not to panic at the realization that now that surprise was not on her side, Clark could physically overpower her. She had been raised to be a lady, a hostess, with sharp words on her side but with little sense of physical self-preservation.
In Roman’s world, she would be little more than a slab of meat on the chopping block.
And in her naïveté and wrapped in her cold persona, she had never been exposed to this type of danger before since she had never posed a challenge to the rakes. They had seen her as a cold fish, a statue on display.
Only recently had she begun to think of herself outside those terms. Wild emotion surged at the revelation, but she pressed it back down. She had to remain focused.
“This isn’t over,” Clark said, dark promises in his eyes before he walked around her, giving her a wide berth, continuing down the hall, cloak swishing along the floor.
She swallowed, then stumbled forward as the door opened and Roman pulled her inside. He tilted her chin, touched her shoulders and hands, looking her over, as if for injury, as she pressed against the back of the closed door. Again.
Her eyes adjusted more quickly this time, and there was something far darker than Clark could ever claim in the depths of Roman’s eyes. A darkness that made her feel safer. She closed her eyes. Breath coming quickly. Heady success mixed with lingering fear.
She’d fought off Clark. Taken care of him herself.
But she’d been caught.
Not in some shady tale of her arriving late, but observed with her fingers wrapped around the door of a back room.
The only thing that could have been worse was if Bethany had seen her. Hell, Bethany could have turned the corner at any point and seen her with Clark.
“Come.”
She opened her eyes to see Roman reaching toward her, eyes still raking her. She automatically put a hand in his, pausing only to wonder why she so often did as he willed without question. His fingers curled around hers, clasping her clammy, though covered, hand in his warmer one.
He pulled her toward a very large portrait of a snowy, austere man that hung in the middle of the wall, and ran a finger down the side, lightly tapping.
“What are you doing?”
“Clark will return any moment with someone he trusts in order to catch you here with a witness.”
Fear overtook the dissipating feelings of heady success. “We have to leave.”
“Either that or kill Clark.”
She opened her mouth. “We . . . we have to leave.”
“I thought that would be your choice.” He ran a finger along the frame, his voice almost disappointed.
“What are you doing?” she said, pulling at him to move toward the door, the window, anything.
He pulled her firmly against his body, his other hand moving along the gold scrolls. Finally, he smiled and pushed.
The entire frame rotated, opening up to a dark space behind. A corridor.
She stared at it in disbelief, then looked at his faint smile.
He raised a brow, obviously amused. “Did you think I would ask you to meet in a room lacking escape?”
“How did you . . . ?”
He lit a nearby candle. “Drunken tongues turn spare and loose when on a winning streak. And people frequently forget that I am far from the person I pretend to be when playing.” Her stomach tightened at the words. He stepped over the low wall and lifted her into the corridor, shutting the painting behind, sealing them inside. “And the middle Hanning likes to joke far too often about his uncle Bernard overseeing his liaisons and keeping him from trouble.”
Roman’s candlelit smile looked almost demonic as he peered down the narrow, dark corridor for a second, holding the light up.
She concentrated on the passageway rather than her ragged nerves. “You, er, you know how to exit this hall, correct?” Being trapped inside a wall and having to pound against the wood to be freed seemed a conspicuous end to a secret liaison.
“I do not.” He said it a trifle too cheerfully. “I didn’t want to spoil the joy and surprise of figuring it out under pressure. I think it comes out near, or in, the library, though.”
She shut her eyes, damning his penchant for risk and her foolishness for always jumping after him with both feet. “Why don’t we just wait for Clark and his cronies to enter and exit the room, then go back through?”
“Because they might wait outside the room, and you need to return to the ballroom quickly. Besides, where is your sense of adventure?”
“I left it in the hall when I stuck a knife into John Clark’s crotch.”
“I think I am jealous.”
“I can remedy that,” she said darkly.
“Promises, promises.” He raised the candle again, looking down the hall. “I’ll go first. There are a few cobwebs that will not look best attached to your head.”
She pressed h
er forehead between his shoulder blades and felt him chuckle as they began to move.
The trek was short, but it gave her time for recrimination. She could barely work up relief when he figured out the locking mechanism to the library and cautiously opened it.
He stood silently, listening for a few long moments. “Wait here,” he whispered, then slipped out. Moments later, he opened the passage door fully and lifted her into the darkened room.
“Voilà, the library.”
She leaned against a set of bookcases as he closed the secret panel—a column of leather books that gave a peculiar metallic click as the wood pushed flush.
“I believe the passage continues to the conservatory as well.” His fingers ran over the spines at the edge of the case. “We could make Clark and his cronies chase us all over the house, if needed.”
She gripped and released a fold of her dress. “I know that for you these meetings are a grand lark,” she whispered, the words accompanied only by the sound of his fingers slipping over the leather spines. “But when I am thinking correctly, I feel them as the deepest danger.”
His fingers paused, silence permeating the room for a moment before he resumed whatever it was he was doing. “On the contrary, this is one of the most dangerous situations I’ve ever found myself in.”
The placement of the lamp on the table in front of her left her features open for view and his hidden, as always.
She gave a short laugh. “I saw you at the Hunsdens’ shop, remember?”
“How could I forget; it was the highlight of my day.”
She closed her eyes. Seeing him was always the highlight of her days. Stupid girl. “I—I don’t think I can do this anymore,” she whispered.
She heard a click and opened her eyes to see the bookcase opening again. Dratted man had been discovering how to open the passage from this side. Lovely. Roman gave the wooden panel a firm push, and it clicked flush again with the surrounding panels.
“I beg to differ.” He reached over and stroked her cheek, eyes shadowed, but a faint smile about his lips. “You have been doing so, and well, might I add, for weeks now.”
“We will be caught. I was just caught.”
“And you dealt with it quite well.” The faint candlelight highlighted his lazy mischievousness. He tilted her chin and pressed a roaming kiss to her throat. “Though being near me does put you in danger.” Darkness entered his tone.
“That’s not it.”
“Have you bored of the chase?” he said against her skin.
The light-headed feeling from both the threat of discovery and his presence indicated she was anything but bored, but she didn’t trust herself to respond.
He leaned away, backing up a pace. “Do you wish to leave, Charlotte? You came here of your own accord.” He indicated the door, then smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Well, it was another door you entered. But the question remains.”
The question really was more why did she come? Night after night, he called to her—from the gardens, from underneath her window, in her dreams—and she repeatedly flung herself to, and at, him.
Who was this new Charlotte who had taken over completely?
“I hardly know you,” she said to herself, whispering.
“No?” He said it lightly, suddenly roaming over to a cabinet in the corner, taking the light with him. “I didn’t think you really wanted to.”
She blinked at his back. “What?”
With his back to her and the light at his side, she couldn’t see his face. “I thought you were perfectly happy in this exchange,” he said, fiddling with one of the doors of the tall cabinet. “Exactly as is.”
“What exactly is this exchange?” She folded her arms, uncertainty running through her, as it always did when they danced around this subject, trying to define whatever it was they had. For when she wasn’t losing herself in carnal bliss, she had to accept that she had a life outside of that bliss. That it was only temporary freedom she found in his arms.
“It is what you want it to be, of course. As it always has been.”
Something shifted uncomfortably. For Roman Merrick took. Freely and unabashedly admitting to it. It was something she counted on actually. That she simply couldn’t resist him and didn’t need to. That she didn’t need to think on the choice. She could just be . . . Charlotte.
“I was under the impression that it was what you wanted it to be,” she said stiffly. “You are the one who collects after all.”
“Am I?” One of the inlaid glass doors of the cabinet opened beneath his hand, and he tapped the pane with a finger, producing a hollow sound in the silent room. “Do you plan to allow me to collect forever?”
“No, of course not.” It was surprisingly hard to say. “And don’t make a mockery of me by trying to imply that you would stay well pleased with me for any length of time.” Her voice was tight, the admission pulled from her.
The tapping of the glass echoed inside her, the only sound in the room for long moments.
“You are quite the conundrum, Charlotte Chatsworth,” he said at last.
She tightened her arms, hugging them uncomfortably to her. She looked to the dark windows of the room. Soulless eyes peering in from the night. “I am hardly a mystery when compared with you.”
“But I am quite simple, in fact.” He cocked his head toward her, back still turned. “My wants and desires easy to discern.”
She stared into the shadows of his profile, waiting for him to laugh at the joke.
“You, on the other hand, don’t know what you desire, do you, Charlotte?” He closed the door and turned to lean back against the wooden case. “Do you want the freedom or the cage?”
“I desire freedom, of course.” But she also desired it for others. For Emily. Whom she had to protect. Who was affected by her rogue actions. A pawn someone like John Clark could use.
Roman extended his hand and made a casual twisting motion toward his chest. “Freedom comes in many guises, though. And sometimes, that which is within is the hardest to release.”
“What . . . ?” She swallowed, unwilling to finish the question. Unwilling to face whatever he might say. Whatever was inside.
“But we—you—have tarried here far too long.” He motioned to her, then to the door. “I can’t seem to help myself from tarrying with you. Why do you think that might be?”
As usual, something underlying his words pulled her to him. So much so that she had to stop the movement of her body. For his first words were correct. She needed to return to the floor posthaste to make a respectable exit. She should have been out there already to mitigate whatever venom John Clark chose to spread.
Her continued presence in the room, with him, was almost frightening. What was she doing?
“You . . .” She chewed the inside of her cheek, trying to stop the words. “You could find me later, perhaps?”
Damn weakness.
He hummed a little something. He was studying her, she knew it from his positioning, from the feel of his stare, but his eyes were hidden in shadow.
Charlotte waited a moment too long, uncertainty and apprehension running through her. He remained motionless, watching, as if trying to solve the conundrum, leaning against the cabinet, pulling deeper shadows to him. She turned when the moment grew to discomfort and walked to the door, peering out, waiting for a threesome of girls to pass before slipping into the hall after them. Not looking back.
He didn’t stop her. And she should be happy about that. She needed to understand this compulsion for him and do something to remedy it, to even out her emotions.
The library was a few doors from the retiring room. She bit her lip. Roman always knew what he was doing. Still, Charlotte slipped inside, half-anticipating her appearance to be wild and disorderly now. But she looked perfectly put together. No traces of being pressed and frenzied, of being caught and forced to sneak through a dusty secret passage laced with spiderwebs.
She gathered her courage and exi
ted with a group of women returning to the ballroom; then headed toward her mother as sedately as she could, hiding her emotions behind her strict carriage and mask. She didn’t feel any whispers or secretive looks cast her way to indicate John Clark had carried out any of his implied threats.
She also didn’t feel the relief of knowing she wasn’t ruined yet. And such odd feelings required intense examination, for she had felt such converse emotion ever since she had spent that first night with him. She found her mother quickly and stayed at her side for the remainder of the night. Her mother kept sending suspicious, cool glances her way, but said nothing.
From the lack of immediate whispers, it appeared that Clark intended to find a different way to extort revenge. She had seen him staring at her across the room soon after she had reentered, a glittering look in his eye. Then he had suddenly disappeared, as if the devil had yanked him back to hell.
Off plotting, no doubt. For he didn’t have a solid hold on which to pin the rumor. It would be his word against hers, and, at the moment, hers held more weight.
Though that would change in the blink of an eye should she be caught again—especially by a second person. She was going to have to pay even more care in the future.
The future. She found it difficult to breathe as she watched the masked dancers twirl—anonymous friends and lovers finding each other. Silly. But she couldn’t bear to think of a future that didn’t contain clandestine meetings with him. She tried to stop the threat of tears. One way or another, their affair would come to an abrupt end. How, was the only question.
Clark had been easily taken care of. The man hadn’t presented even a remote challenge. Boring task really, but for the emotions evoked by what Clark had planned to do to Charlotte. That had made the task . . . less boring.
The night had long since blended into the morning when the chair on the other side of the table scraped against the floor. Roman continued to roll the dice at his two-person table, stretched back with his arm over the back of his chair, watching the pips turn. He hardly needed a card printed with a spade to tell him who currently occupied the other seat.
