by Gwyn Cready
“Nice,” she said.
He was gazing thoughtfully at her reflection in the mirror. “I should like to see the white.”
She shifted. “I’m not sure.”
“’Tis a classical conceit,” he said. “Purity, of course—always appropriate in a bride—but also strength.”
He let the taupe fall, and maybe it was the way the silk ran over her skin, but she felt as if she’d been stripped bare. Her blouse and skirt could have been made of air. Her mouth dried. Suddenly, this seemed like a slightly dangerous activity for ten in the morning.
“I’m a little thirsty.”
He smiled. “Let me see what we can find.”
“What in God’s name are you doing?” Fiona demanded.
“Keep your voice down,” Hugh said as he searched the stores Nathaniel had gathered the night before. He was enjoying his sartorial liaison with the spirited young woman—the cheek of that canty “I should like to thank the rescuer” still glowed in his head—and he wanted nothing to disturb it. “I am passing the time, nothing more. The woman’s to be married in a costermonger’s apron, for God’s sake. I am trying to persuade her to wear something else.”
“She’s a spy.”
“If she is, I’ll resign my commission. She lacks the sangfroid to be an operative of any sort, let alone Alfred Brand’s. She’s curious about our arrival yesterday. Nothing more. Wasn’t there a bottle of hock here?”
Nathaniel, who had been pouring the last of it into a mug, looked sheepish. “Sorry, sir.”
“You’re taking an unnecessary chance,” Fiona said.
Hugh swept the mug into his fist and ran a sleeve over the rim. “Isn’t it time for you to follow up with that publican friend of yours?”
Fiona sniffed and made her way down the back stairs. When Hugh heard the door slam, he said to Nathaniel, “What are your skills when it comes to the gowns of Greek goddesses?”
James placed the mug in her hand, and Joss smiled. The ceramic was cool to the touch, just what she needed to counter the heat rising from where he’d brushed her skin. She took a deep gulp and nearly choked.
“It’s wine!”
His brows knitted. “Aye?”
It was also room temperature, and she felt the dry, fruity warmth slither all the way to her toes. “I guess I’m just not used to having wine before lunch.”
“I can get you something else.”
She looked at the bolt of white silk he was gathering. “No, it’s fine.” She swigged another mouthful. So much for working, she thought, then gasped. “What time is it?” She jerked her phone out of her pocket and checked the screen: 10:27. Hell’s bells! The operations team would be walking into the main conference room right now to give her the updated production schedule. She needed to let her operations guy, Louis, know she was going to have to push the meeting back.
She tapped the screen to pull up her list of contacts. “Sorry,” she said to James. “I have to make a quick call.”
He looked at the phone as if it had grown a tail and was emitting smoke.
“What? You’ve never seen one of these?” She held up her much beloved iPhone.
He shook his head.
Jeez, what kind of non-tailor academy did he go to?
“Oh, it’s really cool.” She held it out for him to see. “See, I pull up the list here, and then just tap the screen to bring up the Bs. I choose my person . . .” Her thumb worked the screen deftly. “Then I can either call or text or even e-mail.” She hit Louis’s mobile number.
“E-mail?” His brows knitted.
“I’m stuck in another meeting,” she said when Louis answered, and did a little shrug in the direction of her companion. “Do you mind if we push it back until eleven . . . um, thirty?”
“No prob.”
“Thanks. See you then.” She hit End Call. “Not so good if they figure out the boss is playing hooky.”
James nodded, clearly still in awe over the hardware. Joss returned the phone to her pocket. Must be a Sprint customer.
“Boss?” James said.
“Yeah, Louis works for me.”
“You are his superior?”
“Well, you wouldn’t say that if you saw me trying to optimize the production schedules, but, yes, technically.”
He considered this, then nodded.
“Have you been in this location long?” she asked. As long as they were chewing the fat here, she might as well try to hit some of the high points on her agenda.
He removed a cuff link and began rolling up a sleeve. “No. Not very.”
“Seems like kind of an unusual location—the alley, I mean.” His forearm was tan and ropy, like a construction worker’s, with a fringe of glinting copper. Definitely carrying arms.
He unrolled the white fabric and laid it on the counter. “It’s close to where we need to be.”
Which could mean almost anything.
“Tell me about your fiancé,” he said. “Would he like you in this?”
“Cripes, I think he’d like me in anything.” Or out of anything, for that matter, she thought. Bringing Rogan into this conversation made her uneasy.
“Have you known him long?” James folded the silk methodically, end over end.
“Hardly at all. We met three months ago, around the time my dad got sick. We had dinner together, and it was nice, but it was when I saw him standing at the hospital the next morning, waiting to go in with me, that I knew he was the one. What about you? Where are you from? I can tell it’s not Pittsburgh.”
He smiled. “A place called Wych Cross, not far from Eastbourne. My brother was a bookkeeper there. He raised me until I was eleven. After that I went to live with a distant cousin.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know it.”
“It’s in Ashdown Forest, a beautiful place.”
“Ashdown Forest?” she said, straightening. “Winnie-the-Pooh’s forest?”
She thought of that map of the Hundred Acre Wood, the first map she’d fallen in love with. She knew for many people maps were about finding something or getting somewhere, but for Joss, the best sorts of maps were the ones that drew you into a world all their own.
But it seemed James had no more knowledge of Pooh than he did of iPhones. He showed no signs of comprehension.
She said, “I cannot believe you grew up in Ashdown Forest and don’t know Winnie-the-Pooh. It’s a children’s book about a boy, Christopher Robin, and the little teddy bear he loves. Christopher Robin is a very proper English schoolboy—well, apart from living in a forest, I suppose—and takes care of the animals there like Kanga and her baby, Roo, Eeyore, the donkey, and Pooh. Oh, it’s wonderful. But the map of their forest!” She put her hand over her heart. “They live in the Hundred Acre Wood, which the author based on the visits he made with his children to Ashdown Forest. And the book’s illustrator, Ernest H. Shepard, created this absolutely magical map of the forest that appears at the front and back of every book, which invites you into wonderful places like the ‘Sandy Pit Where Roo Plays’ and the ‘Pooh Trap for Heffalumps’ and my favorite, ‘Eeyore’s Gloomy Place (Rather Boggy and Sad).’” Joss spoke the names in her best British accent, which admittedly wasn’t very good. “Oh, it just couldn’t be more beautiful. It was the first map I ever loved.”
The corner of his mouth rose. “You fall in love with maps?”
“Oh, God, over and over. Treasure Island, The Swiss Family Robinson, Lewis and Clark, Christopher Columbus, the London Tube. They all seem to tell a story. I even had a notebook where I kept all my map observations. I was like Harriet the Spy, poring over my book of secrets.”
The smile disappeared. “A spy book?”
She waved away the question. “Ah, it’s a girl thing. The point is I’ve got it pretty bad for maps. Which is a good thing, I guess, since that’s what I do for a living.”
His brows rose. “Indeed?”
“Oh yeah, it’s the biggest barely-making-it map company in the world. It use
d to be bigger, before this”—she tapped the phone in her pocket—“pretty much eliminated the need for paper maps.”
He considered this, expressionless. “Well, I regret I do not know your bear. But I can tell you Ashdown Forest is a lovely place to be a boy. It was the happiest time of my life. I was quite sad when I had to leave.”
“I’m sorry. That must have been very hard.” Joss thought of the day her mother collapsed and died, and how everything seemed to change in a blink of an eye. She knew what it was like to have one’s world swept away, to feel rootless and terrified, like a mouse dodging the waves on a storm-tossed beach.
He gave her a small smile and gestured to the fabric. “Shall we try the white?”
“Yeah. Why not?”
She waited for him to drape the silk over her shoulder, but instead he picked up a pair of scissors and cut.
“Oh no!” she cried. “I hate to see you ruin it.”
He laughed. “We shan’t have ruined it.”
When he finished, he held the ends as one would hold a towel for a toddler getting out of the bathtub. She took another gulp of wine and put the mug on a nearby table. Inhaling, she lifted her arms, and he drew the fabric around her. His hands were capable and quick, and the silvery scars that crisscrossed them seemed to suggest a life of action.
“Oh, it’s like a toga,” she said.
“Not quite. A toga is a man’s garment. The chiton is unequivocally feminine. Hold this.” He indicated the two end flaps of the fabric, which, having been wrapped around her body, under her right arm, now met over her left shoulder. She grabbed the ends, and he attached the flaps to each other with a pin a few inches from the corners of the fabric. Joss could smell the tang of a sea breeze on his skin.
“You can let go,” he said.
She released the fabric, and it fell in a curved wave across her body, curling around her right hip and up to her shoulder. The fabric hung open on her left side except where it had been pinned over her shoulder. She gestured to the wide expanse of right chest showing, which, if the chiton was all he was suggesting she wear, was going to make for a memorable ceremony. “I’m assuming we’re not done here.”
He laughed, and the sound filled the room like the notes of a bassoon. “There were goddesses who wore it with a breast showing—at least, I’ve seen it so in paintings. I take it you’d prefer your Nike to be, er, somewhat less intent on distraction.”
“Yes, please.”
“You may be abandoning a winning battle strategy.”
“A risk I shall have to take—although I suppose Rogan would like it.”
James looked at her, curious.
“My fiancé.”
“Ah.” He grasped the fabric hanging under her right breast, did the same with some under her right shoulder blade, then pinned that at her shoulder, creating a sort-of loose, open sleeve for her right arm. “How’s that?”
She looked at herself in the mirrors. The silk hung in fitted waves that followed her curves without clinging, and even in this rough assemblage, the beginnings of the gown he had sketched shone through.
“There’s something missing.” He dug through a large basket in the corner, rattling cases of pins and buttons in the process. He extracted a spool of white ribbon and examined it. “Not quite.” He dug some more. With a flourish, he pulled a length of twisted gold rope, about a half inch in diameter, from the collection. “This,” he said triumphantly.
He looped the rope around her waist, crossed the ends in the front of the gown, crossed them in the opposite direction in the back, then tied the ends.
“And there,” he said, pleased, “is our goddess.”
Joss gasped. All she needed was a golden apple or the reins of a chariot. The effect was stunning. Not only did she feel beautiful, she felt powerful and worldly and slim and tall. If they could conjure magic from a bolt of fabric and eight feet of twisted satin cord, what else might those hands be able to do?
“Lift your hair,” he said.
He had stopped looking in the mirror and was now gazing directly at her. There was something in the way he had said it that made the bubbles reach a hard boil. That’s when she got scared.
She hopped off the platform and began pulling at the makeshift dress. “I-I . . . have to go.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Stop.”
The hand on Joss’s arm was no longer the hand of a rescuer. It was the hand of a man intent on having his way. A shiver went through her.
“I have to go,” she said.
“Why did you come here?” James’s eyes shone a heated aqua.
“To see about my skirt.”
“I don’t believe you.”
His words surprised her, and she could feel the warmth fly across her cheeks. She pulled her arm loose and began to unpin the chiton. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Why did you come here? Speak the truth.”
She didn’t like that he saw through her. People did not talk to her that way. She pulled off the silk and dropped it on a table. He moved between her and the room’s exit.
“I am speaking the truth.”
He chuckled. “I wouldn’t have expected you to scruple so. Say it.”
She wished she had Peter’s light saber, though she supposed the look in her eyes right now was almost as daunting.
He lifted his chin in challenge. “Say it.”
“Fine. There’s something going on here. I don’t know if you’re a tailor or not, but there’s something going on here that’s just plain weird.”
“Weird?”
“Sparks, explosions, invisible domes that shiver and shake?”
“And you came here to find out?”
“Yes.”
“I think this is what you came to find out.” He pulled her to him and buried her mouth with his. The kiss was neither romantic nor halting. It demanded an answer, which she damned herself for giving. A charge exploded in her belly. His mouth was hard and practiced, and she returned his hunger with her own, spurred by the iron arms at her back and the scent of a storm-laden sea that hung on his clothes and skin.
“Let me go. This is wrong.”
He caught her wrists and backed her against the wall, lifting her hands above her. “Nothing that feels like this can be wrong.” He kissed her again, and she struggled to free herself from his grip. She was exposed, unable to hide her feelings in a fortress of cool indifference. He held her until she stopped moving. Then he let go, and her hands found their way into the thick, dark curls on his head. She urged him closer, intensely aware of the power of his massive body and the overwhelming current that was running between them.
He paused, breathing heavily. “I want you. Now.”
She gasped as he lifted her onto a sturdy low table and lifted her skirt.
“I can’t,” she said.
His fingers found her bud and rolled it open. Fire crackled in her veins.
“Can’t?” he said. “Or shouldn’t? There’s a difference.”
She was wet. More than ready, and he could see it on her face. Her thighs ached for joining, and she said nothing as he stripped her of her panties.
He flung his coat on the floor and loosened his trousers, letting the shirttails fall on either side of his granite length. The flushed skin there shone like polished wax, and he was as wide and long as a pillar candle.
He caught her knees and lifted them, pushing her onto her palms. With a wild noise, he spread her legs.
Every cell in her body demanded she submit to the fire, but she knew she must not. “Please, no. I’m engaged.”
“I don’t want to marry you. I want to plow you.” He tore off his shirt, and after two exploratory presses he gave a thrust hard enough to bury himself inside her.
His eyes widened, as did hers. He beat his hips against her, and she writhed, trying to harness the stormy pleasure.
“You came for this,” he whispered.
“No.”
“Say it.”
“No, you don’t like the ops plan, or no, you don’t want a fill-up?”
Joss jerked from her fantasy. Everyone in the darkened conference room was looking at her. Louis, her ops manager, who had refilled his own cup, was holding the coffeepot over hers.
“I mean, it is empty.”
“No, no,” she said, flushing and waving him on. “Coffee’s fine.”
“But the plan’s a problem?” he said, cautious.
Christ, she’d barely heard the plan. What was wrong with her? Why would a tailor or whatever he was have such an impact on her? It was the chiton, and the way his eyes had sparkled when she’d talked about maps. She reminded herself to stick to the facts. Just because he’d watched her walk all the way up the alley when she left didn’t mean he was about to bang her senseless on a tabletop, now, did it? She looked around quickly. She hadn’t said that out loud, too, had she?
“No,” she said, “the plan is, um, good.”
“Is it what you were imagining?”
She shot him a look and immediately regretted it. He hadn’t meant her fantasy.
“I mean, if you’re not sure,” he said, “the team would be happy to hit the drawing board again—”
“No, no, no. The plan is . . . well, what can anyone really say about a plan like that? I have the utmost confidence that you guys can make it work.”
He nodded hesitantly. “All right, then. We’ll make it happen.”
And you wonder why your company is teetering on the edge of insolvency?
CHAPTER NINE
The dark, handsome man won the hand of the mapmaker and they married. They had a beautiful daughter, and they gave her everything she could want—toys, dolls and even a magical place guarded by a pair of lions. She lived like a princess. Everything was perfect until the dark, handsome man began to want more. “But we have so much,” said the mapmaker, who needed nothing more than her little princess daughter and her handsome husband and her lovely maps.
—The Tale of the Beautiful Mapmaker
