Lord, he was handsome with that smile. She could rule out ‘ravager.’ Ravagers were supposed to have bad teeth and poor hygiene habits. He looked like the seducing sort. From the light of the carriage lamps, it was blatantly clear he could have whoever’s company he desired without ravaging. Her stranger was striking: dark-haired, classically featured with a sharp nose that looked like it had come straight from a Roman coin.
The carriage hit a rut in the road. Elisabeth reached for a hand strap, acutely aware of his gaze upon her and the silence that filled the coach.
‘I suppose introductions are in order before we go much farther. I’m Dashiell.’ He drawled in easy tones that suggested he was not nearly as unnerved by their situation as she was.
‘Elisabeth,’ she replied in firm tones, hoping to convey a confidence to his. First names only would be best. She didn’t want this seductive almost-stranger finding her when the adventure was all over. It would be her ruin if word got out.
‘Now that’s established, let’s move on to our next item of business. Where are we going, Elisabeth?’ He was smiling again.
Probably to perdition. But he clearly didn’t care. What kind of man walked out of a dinner party given by the prime minister’s premier cabinet member and simply didn’t return?
‘You can drop me off in Greenwich.’ Elisabeth managed, a sense of caution reasserting itself. ‘I can find my way from there.’ The less he knew the better. This was all a game to him, something to break up his ennui. But it couldn’t be a game to her. She was just beginning to understand the risks she was taking if he discovered who she was.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘You were planning to walk to Greenwich in the dark of night?’
‘If I had to.’ She hoped her defiance covered her uncertainty. She hadn’t known exactly how she was getting to Greenwich. She’d only known she was going. ‘I could have taken a hansom cab.’
The eyebrow went up again in doubt. ‘Dressed like that? I don’t think a driver would have believed you could pay the fare all the way to Greenwich.’
She hadn’t thought of that but she wasn’t about to tell Mr. Handsome-And-Apparently-A-Touch-High-Handed he might have a point.
‘No matter, it’s all worked out perfectly, don’t you think?’ Dashiell said expansively. ‘I’ve escaped a tedious dinner engagement with eighteen other guests and you have simply escaped.’ He fixed her with a look that warned her she wouldn’t like the next thing to come out of his mouth. ‘By the way, Elisabeth, what were you escaping from?’
Elisabeth reconsidered her earlier preference. First names might preserve anonymity but using them also took away all formality. The sound of her name on his lips was positively intimate in the confines of a carriage at night. This was a man who could turn a woman’s head with little or no effort. She had to be careful or he’d be coaxing all of her secrets out of her.
‘I’d prefer to keep that information to myself.’ She sounded so prim, so very much like…
her mother. Elisabeth fought the urge to cringe. Here she was in a carriage with a dashing stranger who hadn’t decided she was a bluestocking freak yet, and she sounded like a governess.
‘I’d prefer to know a little bit more about the company I keep. Surely you’re just a teeny bit curious about me, too. It’s an hour to Greenwich so I have a proposition for you.’
A proposition.
A deliciously wicked tremor skittered down her spine. This man wasn’t suitable company at all, and to think he’d made her mother’s guest list. What had her mother been thinking? Maybe thoughts hadn’t had anything to do with it. She was testament enough that good judgement seemed to fly right out of the equation when faced with the handsome charmer sitting across from her. For all of her carefully laid plans to see the comet, she’d jettisoned them rather quickly at his offer of a ride.
Of course, accepting the ride was only good logic. She could defend her choice to some extent. It stood to reason it would be a faster, more direct option than finding her way on her own. But now, the logic was starting to shift.
‘What kind of proposition?’ Elisabeth crossed her legs in a nonchalant gesture and hoped she sounded more sophisticated than she felt.
‘A game of Consequences. I’ll ask you a truth and you can decide to answer it or not.’
‘And the consequence for not answering?’ Elisabeth asked just a little bit breathless at the possibilities. This carriage ride was fast becoming something more than expedient transport. It was becoming freedom, a chance to be someone else besides Viscount Graybourne’s daughter. For a brief while she could be free from the confines of a life that stifled much of the person she actually was. Meeting Dashiell-The-Handsome-Stranger was becoming a once in a lifetime opportunity just like the comet and she was going to seize it.
He gave her a wide smile and she knew, just knew, he was going to say something outrageous. ‘Kisses, Elisabeth. We’ll play for kisses.’
That delicious tremor made a return journey down her spine. Why not? If anyone found out she’d been alone in a closed carriage with a man, no one would care what they’d done in it. The sin was already committed if they played for kisses or not. She might as well go the distance. In the last twenty minutes she’d committed almost every sin known to debutantes.
It seemed a very short fall to include this one to the list.
Elisabeth smiled. ‘Ask your first question.’
Chapter Three
‘What colour are your eyes.’ The question caught her by surprise. She hadn’t expected it to be so simple. But perhaps that was his strategy: lull her into complacency and edge gradually towards what he really wanted to know.
‘My eyes are brown.’
Dashiell shook his head, a disarming grin on his face. ‘No, they’re not.’
‘I beg your pardon? I should think I’d know what colour my eyes are.’
Dashiell chuckled. ‘A woman who climbs out windows cannot merely have brown eyes.
Whisky perhaps, sherry, cognac eyes maybe.’
‘Are you suggesting she must be a drunkard to climb out the window?’
‘No, she must be unique. Anyone can have brown eyes. Only a few can have eyes the colour of aged port.’
After four Seasons, she should be immune to such flattery. More than that, she should know such flattery for what it was: empty words. But it was too tempting to play Dashiell’s game and far too much fun. More than that, a very curious part of her wanted to see where it would lead.
‘Unique is so very close to odd, we must be careful,’ Elisabeth ventured. She was flirting boldly now, far more boldly than she’d flirted with the young men of London. She tried to ignore the skittering sensation settling in her stomach. He was studying her intently, his eyes roving her face, resting on her lips in a manner that made her feel utterly feminine and powerful. Perhaps she’d decline the next question simply to explore his unspoken invitation.
She ran her tongue over her lips, her mouth having gone dry at the prospect of her audacity.
‘Ask me another question.’
‘What were you doing climbing out the window?’ His voice was quiet, his gaze focused on her, making it clear he didn’t want her to answer the question any more than she did.
‘You know I don’t want to answer that,’ Elisabeth said softly.
‘That’s why I asked it.’ His answer was hoarse. ‘It’s not nearly far enough to Greenwich to ask questions you’ll answer when all I really want to do is kiss you.’
He leaned across the carriage, closing the small gap of space between them, with a guiding hand at the nape of her neck, drawing her mouth to his, her body to his. Never had she experienced a kiss like this. Elisabeth gave herself over to the seductive pressure of his lips, to the sensation of being in a man’s arms. This was no chaste peck on a closed mouth or a turned cheek. This was the kiss of a man who desired her, the very proof of that desire evidenced in the hardness of his arousal where it pressed against her trousers. His hands cuppe
d her bottom and she was suddenly, keenly aware of her position on his lap, her legs on either side of him.
He deepened the kiss, his hands moving upwards to pull the tails of her borrowed shirt from the waistband. His hands slid under the material, warm on her skin, moving upwards to take her breasts. A little moan escaped her as his thumbs caressed the tender skin above her nipples, sending a stab of white heat to her belly. This was absolute wickedness. She was entirely wanton in his arms, pressing herself ever closer to him in her determination to assuage the need he so adroitly aroused in her.
This was absolute madness. He needed to call a halt to it before it got out of control. His last vestiges of rational thought laughed at him. Before it got out of control? He had his hands under a woman’s shirt while she moaned into his mouth and pressed her provocative hips to his erection. By any standard, it was already out of control and likely to remain that way if she so much as wiggled those hips one more time. He’d have those delectable trousers off and her beneath him on the carriage seat in a matter of moments.
Elisabeth of the trousers and the cognac eyes was driving him mad. She smelled of lavender and he had the wild idea that if he could sink himself in her he would find something he’d been looking for, something he’d lost eons ago. Dashiell’s hands worked the flap of her trousers open and came to a frustrating halt. The carriage had stopped.
Dashiell breathed a ragged curse and drew back. ‘It seems we have arrived.’ Perhaps later he’d think on this as a timely interruption which had spared him no end of worries but right now the interruption was nothing more than a deuce inconvenience that left him in a rather heightened state of unfulfilled arousal.
Elisabeth scooted back to her seat, a lovely, dishevelled mess of untucked shirt and tousled hair. His erection strained uncomfortably against the fall of his trousers like a dog wanting to be let off the leash.
Dashiell cleared his throat and found his voice, trying to play the unaroused gentleman.
‘If you give me the address, I can have you delivered to the very doorstep of your destination.’
‘Sir Richard Ogilvy’s town house on Front Street. It’s not far.’
A man’s house. A shaft of jealousy knifed through him. His Elisabeth was going to a man’s home, alone, in the dark of night. True, it was only nine o’clock. By London standards it was early. Most balls hadn’t even gotten underway. ‘Is he expecting you?’ Dashiell enquired in the most nonchalant tones he could muster.
Before she could answer, the driver called down they’d arrived at the address. They went through the little rituals of parting; Elisabeth reached for her satchel. He jumped to the ground and pulled down the steps for her but it seemed surreal. He didn’t want to say goodbye, not when he’d just found her.
Dashiell caught her arm as she stepped down. ‘Elisabeth, don’t go. Stay with me, we can go somewhere.’
She gave him a half smile, her head tilted teasingly to the side. ‘Is this another proposition?’
‘Would you accept it if it was?’
She shook her head. ‘No. I have to see Sir Richard. If I don’t see him now, it will be too late. I’m sorry, I have to go.’
‘Will I see you again?’ He sounded almost desperate. It was not well done of him. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d been desperate over a woman, or the last time a woman had left him straining in his trousers.
‘It would be best if you didn’t.’
‘Did you steal something from that house tonight? Perhaps something for this Sir Richard?’ He asked point-blank. The idea that she could be in jeopardy sat poorly with him.
If she was in trouble he wanted to know. He would protect her.
‘No!’ Her chagrin was genuine as was her exasperation. Behind those cognac eyes of hers she seemed to decide something. ‘If you must know, I’m here about the comet.’
‘The comet?’ He’d heard of the comet of course. One couldn’t be in London this year and not be aware of it. Halley’s Comet it was called or some such. But it had not held his interest.
He’d been too absorbed in the drama unfolding in his own life to pay much attention. But Elisabeth had. She’d climbed out of a window for it and ventured into the night. It made her all the more intriguing and brought him full circle, back to the question that had prompted his offer in the first place. If she wasn’t a thief, who was she?
Dashiell kept a grip on her arm. ‘I’ll walk you to the door.’ But he knew he wasn’t going to leave it at that. He’d follow her in and he’d stay as long as needed to figure out who she was.
Chapter Four
Elisabeth cast a worried glance skyward. This adventure wasn’t going as planned and not all of her minded, especially the part of her that had enjoyed the kissing in the carriage interlude. That part didn’t mind at all. The more practical side of her did. She didn’t need the enigmatic Dashiell attached to her side. She had work to do and she needed to maintain her anonymity for this mad dash to Greenwich to work. Whoever Dashiell was, he might recognize her later. If he had enough clout to make her mother’s guest list, he ran in her family’s circles, or at least their periphery.
Her unlooked for companion wasn’t the only thing not going as planned. The weather wasn’t cooperating, either. The moment she’d stepped foot outside the carriage she’d noticed the gathering fog. A quick study of the sky confirmed her fears. The comet was up there somewhere but they would be hard pressed to see it even with Sir Richard’s advanced telescopic equipment.
Elisabeth knocked on the door. She was answered immediately by a wild, white-haired man who wore an air of distraction like most men wore clothes. Dashiell shot her a look of disbelief: they’d driven all this way to meet a madman? She offered an apologetic shrug. She probably should have explained Sir Richard. But that would have required so many other explanations.
‘Elisabeth! You came. Come in, come in, and your friend, too.’ Sir Richard ushered them inside briskly but not unkindly. ‘Are you an astronomer, too?’ He threw the words over his shoulder, hurrying ahead of them up the stairs.
‘No,’ Elisabeth answered for Dashiell, nearly running up the stairs to keep up with Sir Richard’s fast pace. They were headed to the third floor where he’d converted the attics into his personal observatory since the Royal Observatory had long since tired of his eccentric vigils. ‘This is Dashiell. He’s the transportation.’ Elisabeth cringed; not a great choice of words. In the carriage, he’d been much more than just the transportation. She shot Dashiell an apologetic look.
Sir Richard waved an arm in a vague gesture of acknowledgement, not in the least distressed by the description. ‘Very good, very good, this way now, the observatory is just down the hall.’ The directions were for Dashiell’s benefit. She’d been here before under the auspices of going out to see a girlfriend, but never at night.
‘The comet reappeared then? Elisabeth asked, catching up to Sir Richard.
His face lit up with excitement. ‘Yes, just as you thought it would. It was your calculations I used, Elisabeth. I spotted it last night for a brief time before the fog settled in.’
A thrill shot through her. ‘Mine? I was right?’ She turned to Dashiell with a quick explanation. ‘The comet passed perihelion on November 16 and then it disappeared. I calculated that it would return to our sphere of visual reference by December 20 and it has!’
Dashiell’s face registered a look of fuzzy congratulations as they stepped into the makeshift observatory but she hadn’t expected more. Most people were overwhelmed when she started talking astronomy. She turned back to Sir Richard, striding towards the long telescope. ‘Will we be able to see it?’ She already had her eye to the viewfinder, searching the sky.
She followed the familiar trail, starting north of Alpha Tauri, to Pollux then came the tricky part, travelling the path to Alpha Orion where the stars between Pollux and Alpha Orion weren’t visible yet. The whole path wouldn’t be visible until three in the morning if it was going to be visible at all
under these conditions. Over and over, she traced the path with the telescope, hoping for a glimpse of the comet.
It wasn’t until she became aware of a mug of tea at her elbow that she recalled Dashiell.
Oh, dear! He must think she was a terrible ingrate. She’d ignored him almost entirely since she’d stepped into Sir Richard’s observatory.
Elisabeth stepped away from the telescope and rubbed her eyes. She reached for the tea and took a sip. She grimaced. It was tepid. The mug had been sitting awhile, further proof she’d shamelessly abandoned Dashiell to the chaos of Sir Richard’s observatory after referring to him as the transportation. Well, no wonder she was the Four Season Failure. Tonight proved she’d not earned the moniker without cause. A charming man had offered her a ride and look what she’d done with a plum of an opportunity.
She searched the disorganized room for Dashiell, part of her hoping he was still there.
She couldn’t find him amid the stacks of papers and charts left strewn across any available space. Elisabeth felt a sinking disappointment. One more man chased away by a woman’s scientific mind. It had been nice while it lasted. Better than nice. She’d remember those kisses in the carriage the rest of her life.
‘No luck?’
Elisabeth turned towards the door, startlement, relief and even disbelief a whirling mixture inside her. ‘I thought you had gone.’
‘Did you want me to go?’ Dashiell stood in the doorway, carrying a tray of sandwiches. ‘I thought I’d make myself useful. It looked like it was going to be a long night.’ The thoughtfulness of the gesture was as sexy as the man making it. She’d been a clumsy hostess by comparison, entirely lacking in manners.
‘No, it’s just that I’ve been terribly rude. I’ve abandoned you. I didn’t expect… Well, I didn’t expect this. I didn’t deserve this.’ Elisabeth cleared a space for the tray on one of Sir Richard’s long, cluttered work tables. ‘You made these?’
An Illicit Indiscretion (A Sinful Regency Christmas) Page 2
