by Shana Galen
“And you don’t care as much?” Her eyes widened as though she’d shocked herself at the audacity of her question. He had no doubt this was the first conversation she’d had on the subject of tupping.
“This ain’t about me,” he said. He wouldn’t be her tutor—appealing as that image was—and he didn’t want to think about Marlowe and her new husband together in bed. Even if the thought of the two of them didn’t seem to niggle him tonight as much as usual.
“But it is about you,” she countered. “I asked if it was true that you were in love with Marlowe.”
“Love.” He sneered the word. “That’s another of the words you swells invented to make the beast with two backs seem…” He considered his words carefully. He rarely had any use for his rusty vocabulary. It felt good to pull old words out of his memory and use them again. “Seem lofty and chaste. I don’t even know what love is.”
He jumped when her warm hand touched the skin of his wrist.
Fucking hell.
He would have bet a guinea she pitied him. It was his own damn fault.
Against his every instinct and despite his defenses, he’d revealed far more than he’d ever intended.
Seven
“Get your fingers off me.” He shook off her hand and leaped to his feet.
He didn’t want to talk about Marlowe. Even through the heavy warmth pressing down on her limbs and the pleasant buzzing in her head, she knew Gideon had loved Marlowe. He probably still loved Marlowe.
No wonder he was bitter about love. Had anyone ever loved him? Had anyone ever held him and stroked his hair and kissed his forehead? He must have had a mother who’d loved him.
She thought of her own mother and the distinct lack of hair stroking and forehead kissing in her childhood. Perhaps he did not know what love was.
Maybe she didn’t know either.
Gideon prowled along the perimeter of the dark room. He was amazingly fluid and agile. He reminded her of an acrobat she’d once seen when a troupe of performers had come to a fair near the family’s country estate. Her mother had not allowed her to watch the show, but she’d caught sight of the men leaping and twirling and balancing precariously on a thin rope strung between two poles high off the ground.
Susanna had been astounded before her mother had yanked her away from the window and sent her to her bed without dinner. A few weeks later, when her mother had found a sketch Susanna had done, she’d thrown it into the fire.
In contrast, her brothers had gone out to watch the performance with their father. She’d heard their excited voices as they passed her door on their way to the courtyard. Over breakfast the next morning, she’d listened sullenly as they’d recounted the amazing feats they’d witnessed the night before. Neither her brothers nor her father had seemed to wonder at her absence or care that she had missed all the fun, as usual.
She’d always envied the men’s freedom to go and to do as they liked, while she was confined to the house and constantly admonished not to fidget. She’d prayed to God to turn her into a boy more times than she could count. And when she was old enough to realize that could never happen, she cursed him in her prayers for making her a girl.
At the moment, she regretted a few of those whispered curses. She was cold, wet, and hungry—miserable enough to wonder if her brothers’ freedom hadn’t been quite as perfect as she’d imagined.
She tried to rise and almost pitched headfirst into the fire. Beauty yipped and nudged her back.
“You’re foxed,” Gideon said, coming back into the circle of light.
“I am not!” she protested. Ladies did not ever overimbibe.
“You drank a quarter of a bottle of gin at least. Unless you drink gin regularly, you’re foxed.”
“Ladies do not drink gin,” she informed him.
“Whatever you say.”
He lifted the brick he’d thrown down earlier. It was wrapped in a thin cloth she realized was a handkerchief. Under the handkerchief lay a brown, hard square.
“What is that?”
“Bread.”
She laughed. When he didn’t even smile, she sobered. “Oh, you’re serious.”
She touched the hard loaf with one finger. The bread did not give at all. “That baker should look for another profession.” She giggled.
She hadn’t meant to giggle. She hadn’t even said anything very humorous.
Gideon tried to pull off a hunk of the bread, and when his efforts failed, he banged the edge on the ground. Finally, he was able to pry loose a sizable chunk. He offered it to her on his extended palm.
Susanna shook her head. “You go ahead.”
“You need something besides Blue Ruin in your stomach. That stew Stryker served us was watery and thin.”
“Why is it called Blue Ruin? I’ve never understood that.” She managed to stand on the second try, and swayed, the circle of flames coming dangerously close to her again, but this time Beauty didn’t nudge her back.
This time Gideon caught her.
Oh dear.
The moment he touched her, she was in trouble.
His arms were muscular and enfolded her, warming her immediately. He was bigger than she’d realized. Her head reached only his chin. She knew this because she stared directly at the exposed flesh of his throat. She knew this because she could smell that bare flesh, the light scent of rain and smoke and man. The scent of man was heady.
The feel of man was intoxicating. Her hands rested, flat palmed, over his lungs. His hard chest was a fortified wall, his broad shoulders the battlements. She raised her eyes to the patch of stubble above his Adam’s apple. The dark hair was coarse, and she imagined it might scratch at the delicate flesh of her fingertips. It might feel wonderfully decadent against her tender lips.
She couldn’t resist looking at his lips. As hard as he claimed to be, his lips looked soft and supple. They were pink, in contrast to his bronze skin and the night’s growth of beard. Susanna looked higher, into his eyes. She couldn’t see the vibrant green color in the dim light, but she could imagine it. The firelight flickered off his skin, making his cheeks look golden, making the scar slashing across his eyebrow look angry red.
“What happened?” she asked, reaching up to touch it. He caught her wrist midway and pushed her hand against the wall of the building. The coarse wood chafed her sensitive flesh. His fingers laced with hers and burned her skin. She couldn’t tear her gaze from his. She couldn’t take a deep breath. She couldn’t stop the world from spinning like a wooden top.
“You step too close to the flames, you will be burned,” he said, his voice low and thick.
She swallowed.
“Do you want to be burned?”
“No,” she said. But a small part of her did. The fire might destroy her, but the heat would feel so lovely and warm on her cold limbs.
“Now you answer a question for me.”
She allowed her head to fall back so it rested on the wall behind her and she could look up at him easily. He was far too close to her. He should move back. She should insist he release her and step away.
Except if he drew away, she feared she’d pull him to her again. And if she did that, she would not be able to stop herself from touching him.
“What question?” she whispered.
“Is it true what you said to the boys at Stryker’s? Is this trek to Vauxhall to find your mother’s lover?”
“Yes. And no. And…I don’t know. I can’t think with you standing this close to me. I can’t think when you’re touching me.”
His lips quirked slightly. The heat from his hand on her wrist shot from her arm to the center of her chest, and her heart pounded hard as that heat radiated out and through her entire body. Her nipples puckered and hardened, though she no longer felt cold.
“Do I distract you, Strawberry?” he whispered.
> They were both whispering now. That was unwise. Friends whispered. Confidants whispered. Lovers whispered.
He was none of these to her.
“If you could step back…”
“I don’t want to step back.”
“I won’t fall into the fire. I’m steady again.”
He laughed, a sound deep and velvet. “Are you? I could make your head spin.”
“You already have.” Had she said that? “I mean, it is. Your hand…” She looked to the side, where his hand pinned hers to the wall. “You’re so warm.”
“And you’re so incredibly soft.” He freed one finger and stroked it along the inside flesh of her corresponding finger. She shivered. The heat bubbling in her chest dropped to her belly. How could he do that to her with just a touch of one finger on hers?
“I’ve never felt skin like yours,” he said.
His finger dipped lower to stroke her palm. She gasped and swayed. Now her entire body tingled, the heat dipping very low indeed. She needed to press her thighs together to stem the way her body had begun to pulse.
“I must have drunk more than I thought,” she breathed. “I’m not quite as steady as I ought to be.”
“You’ve never even been kissed, have you?” he asked.
Her gaze had dipped to his lips, but now it flew back to his eyes. He’d asked an impertinent question, one she should chastise him for even thinking, much less voicing aloud. The words died in her throat. His eyes were so dark, too shadowed for her to see anything, and yet she knew if she had been able to see them clearly, they would have been full of desire.
Gideon wanted her.
No one had ever wanted her. She might have seen desire reflected in a man’s eyes before, but she’d never felt it in return. She’d never even had a conversation about a subject more personal than the weather with any man save her male relatives.
She’d never been kissed. Why should she have been kissed? She’d been carefully chaperoned, her virtue protected for her future husband.
It occurred to her, belatedly, that she’d now put that virtue in danger. She should have considered that before she ever left the town house with him. She’d thought she was safe with him, but she wasn’t safe at all.
And she didn’t want to be safe.
His lips were only a few inches from hers, and it thrilled her. She wanted him to kiss her. She wanted him to press her hard against that wall and kiss her until she was dizzy with the sort of desire she’d only read about in books smuggled into her room and hidden away from her mother. She’d blushed at several of Shakespeare’s sonnets, but she’d never blushed as fiercely as she did now.
“No one has ever tried to kiss me,” she confided.
His brows rose as though he were genuinely surprised. “Would you have allowed it?”
“No.” Her gaze lowered to his lips again. She could barely remain upright. Her heart was so loud in her ears, the press of blood against her eardrums making her sway.
“Would you allow me to kiss you?”
“No.”
He chuckled. “You lie.”
She did. She’d heard the lie in her voice, though it hadn’t sounded like her voice at all. She’d sounded like a breathless, desperate woman.
He lifted the hand resting on the wall beside her and slid a piece of her hair behind her ear, his finger caressing her cheek. She drew in a sharp breath. “Don’t.” The plea escaped in a strangled gasp.
“Do I frighten you?”
She didn’t answer. How to explain that it was her own reaction that frightened her far more than he ever could? He drew her hand away from the rough wood of the wall.
His fingers slid down her palm, teasing the lines on the skin, making his own path across the pink surface. Her blood pulsed in rhythm with his movements. She burned with heat and desire. Her lower belly was hot with something she knew must be arousal. She wanted desperately to press her hand against that private part of herself to relieve the tension.
He caught her wrist, two fingers circling it. Keeping his gaze on hers, he lifted her palm to his lips. He didn’t touch his mouth to her, but the warm rasp of his breath feathered against the underside of her fingers. Her back was chilled and still damp, but where their bodies all but touched, she was deliciously warm. The fire crackled, the light fading and the orange reflection dancing on the walls and ceiling. Dimly, she heard the soft patter of London rain outside.
He dipped his head, his gaze meeting hers from under thick, lowered lashes. “May I kiss your hand, my lady?”
He was mocking her. Surely he was mocking her. And yet she found herself nodding in agreement. A line from one of the sonnets of Shakespeare she’d dared read only in the dark of night flickered in her memory.
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand.
She’d never known how erotic those eight words were. Her entire being hovered on the precipice of need as he slowly lowered his mouth to her middle finger. He brushed his lips against the crease where her finger intersected with her palm.
The stubble on his chin teased her skin, scraping it lightly, making her flesh itch and flame and tingle. His lips moved to her third finger, his touch so light she barely knew it was there. And then his mouth slid over the inside of her smallest finger. He pressed his lips against that small finger, kissing her for the first time in earnest. She tried to pull away, but he didn’t release her. Instead, his mouth opened slightly, and he touched her skin with the tip of his tongue.
She moaned.
Mortified, she emitted a shocked gasp. He didn’t seem to notice. His tongue traced the lines of her finger, teasing and swirling against the tip. His mouth slid down and rested in the center of her palm. She squirmed. The stubble tickled her and sensitized her. It was as though every particle in her body was alive, and she could feel not only the press of his lips but the linen of her shift where it pressed against her belly, the hard leather of the boots digging into her ankle, the wispy silk of her gown on the back of her thigh.
Gideon kissed her palm, and Susanna closed her eyes. Sweetness flooded through her at the tenderness. Her first kiss, and it was impossibly perfect, impossibly arousing, impossibly unfulfilling.
He stepped back, his fingers still resting lightly on the pulse pounding against the thin skin of her wrist. With infinite care, he released her hand and dropped his. Susanna stared at her hand. It looked the same, though she would have sworn the flesh was hot to the touch. It seemed to flame and burn.
He bent, lifted something, and held the bread out to her again. This time she took it without argument. She bit into the hard crust, tearing at it with her teeth and swallowing the dry clump with difficulty. Her gaze was on the dying fire, where Beauty snoozed peacefully. How had the dog slept through the turmoil of the past few minutes?
Susanna slid down the wall and sat beside the pup, who raised her head. She opened her hand and gave the eager dog the rest of the bread. Beauty jumped to her feet and wolfed the morsel down in a single bite.
“Don’t give the dog our food!” Gideon moaned.
“She likes it.” Susanna broke off another chunk of bread with no little effort. Beauty gulped that down too. Gideon snatched the loaf away from her.
“This isn’t for the mongrel.”
“Well it isn’t fit for human consumption.”
She was glad for the distraction the dog provided. She didn’t want to talk any more about kissing. She didn’t want to discuss what had just happened between them and what she wished might happen if Gideon ever put his hands on her again. She wanted to close her eyes and sleep for a week and think of nothing and no one.
Gideon pushed her gently back against the wall. “You’re fading, Strawberry. Go ahead and rest. The rain isn’t stopping anytime soon.”
“I’m not tired,” she said with a yawn. Her heavy eyes seemed to drift closed without
her consent. She allowed it, telling herself she would rest only a moment.
* * *
“Give it ’ere, or I’ll make yer mother sorry she ever birthed you.”
“She were already sorry!”
Susanna sat so quickly, the earth tilted and her head turned over and over. She closed her eyes and pressed a hand to the bridge of her nose. Beauty growled. A sharp hiss came from behind her, silencing Beauty. The thief’s legs were stretched before her. She frowned in puzzlement, her face heating when the obvious became clear.
She’d been resting on Gideon. No wonder she wasn’t chilled. She’d probably been lying against his chest. At the thought, her belly tensed. The feeling should have been uncomfortable, but the sensation only made her warmer.
“I told you I was good fer it. Now give it over.”
Susanna glanced over her shoulder at Gideon. “What’s going—”
His hand clamped over her mouth, silencing her. She tried jabbing him in the stomach, but it was muscled and lean. His hand smelled faintly of the smoke from the fire last night. When he leaned close, she shivered from the tickle of his hair brushing against her cheek.
“Not a word. Not a sound.”
She nodded, but he didn’t release her. Light slanted through the cracks in the wood, knifing gold onto the floor around her. The patter of the rain falling had lulled her to sleep, but if the cries of hawkers and rattle of wheels on the streets were any indication, the rain had stopped.
And then there was the argument brewing outside.
“I want the coin in my hand, Mint,” one of the men said.
“How do I know you won’t sell it to someone else afore I return?” the second one whined.
“You don’t. Best be quick, or you’ll lose her to another bidder.”
Susanna straightened. Her?
“Not a word,” Gideon whispered again.
She grabbed his wrist and tugged his hand down. “What are they arguing about?” she whispered.
“It’s not our concern. Our concern is staying hidden until they leave,” he whispered back. A knife of light shot across his face, slicing across the smooth white skin of his scar.
