“Steady now,” he said, holding her as she regained her footing. “Are you alright, my lady?” His eyes were a color that wasn’t blue, but not quite green either, and certainly not a harmonious melding of the two.
“Yes, I lost my footing.” Because that wasn’t painfully obvious. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to maul you.”
Mr. Harvey Hicks smiled, which transitioned him from acceptably handsome to handsome. “It is an honor to be mauled by someone as beautiful as you, my lady.” He released her arm, which he had been holding much longer than necessary, and gave a bow. “Harvey Hicks, at your service. Should you ever need to maul someone, all you have to do is ask; I will be more than happy to oblige.”
Once, when they had been girls, she and Nellie had attended a picnic together in Kent. They’d been sitting together by the pond, quite a ways from the others their age as was the norm, when two boys approached them. The boys had asked them for a walk, and since they were just learning to notice the appeal of spending time with the opposite sex, they eagerly accepted. The boys had been kind, talking about how pretty they thought the two girls were and asking if they had already set their hearts on anyone in particular. Bits had been enraptured, feeling like the heroine in one of the romance novels she would sneak out of her mother’s stash. She didn’t notice how the boys were walking them towards the other children, or how they kept edging them nearer and nearer to the pond. In fact, she didn’t realize anything was amiss until she felt herself falling, only to be caught by the pond’s muddy embrace.
She couldn’t help but remember that old humiliation as Mr. Harvey Hicks smiled at her.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Hicks, but this is all very improper,” she said, her voice sounding shrill even to her ears. “We have not been introduced.”
Mr. Harvey Hicks wasn’t the type to be easily deterred. Instead of turning on his heel and stomping off, as she had hoped, he turned his grin to Alice. “Lady Alice, would you please be so kind as to make the introductions.”
Alice gave Bits a look that clearly said she was to behave herself. “Lady Elizabeth, may I introduce Mr. Harvey Hicks, of Hicks’s Face Saving Salve fame. Mr. Hicks, this is my dear friend, Lady Elizabeth Warner. She is an honored guest of the Duke.”
Mr. Harvey Hicks bowed yet again. “A pleasure, Lady Elizabeth. And an honor. I had the pleasure of meeting your brother-in-law in Bath a few years ago. He spoke very highly of you.”
Bits doubted that was true. Keaton wasn’t the kind of man to speak freely to anyone he did not know well, and she doubted his conversation ever ventured towards her.
“He told me you had a good eye for machinery, and I should seek your council before investing in one of the new contraptions being built to assist with production.”
Or maybe Keaton had spoke to Mr. Harvey Hicks and mentioned her. There weren’t very many other ways he could have known such a thing. No one in Corrigan other than the Nashes, Sidhe, Alice, Garroway, and the Chanses knew about her abilities. After Rose’s procedure, Sidhe had decided keeping her Velchan status secret was for the best, and everyone had agreed, including Garroway. Bits might have thought the priest had spread the word anyway out of spite, but there had been some sort of spell to seal the agreement. She felt fairly certain none of them could have told a soul even if they’d tried.
“My father was interested in clockwork,” she explained. “I spent a great deal of time in his workshop as a girl. I suppose I might have learned something of his craft.”
“Well, if you know the difference between a cog and a gear, you’ve got an advantage over me. I would love to have your input on a contraption an Ironmaster in Newcastle has been trying to sell me.”
“Certainly.” She would plan on doing it somewhere between the time pigs sprouted wings and the sun turned green.
“I look forward to it,” Mr. Harvey Hicks said, beaming at her as if she’d just promised to hand over her family’s fortune. “Now, until then, I will have to find other ways to secure the pleasure of your company. Perhaps you would honor me with the next dance?”
Was this a joke? There weren’t any ponds about for him to toss her in, but dance floors were filled with an abundance of other traps a poor, naïve girl could fall into. Her friends all smiled back at her, and Alice made a little shooing motion with her hand.
“I suppose one dance wouldn’t hurt.”
“Excellent! Shall I have your card?”
“No, you shall not.”
Bits froze, her hand halfway to the dance card she had almost chucked into a potted plant earlier in the evening, thinking she would have no need of it. Her entire body came alive at the sound of his voice. Although she knew she shouldn’t, she turned to him. Ezra was dressed in simple, but elegant black. His hair was brushed back, not a single curl out of place. The blue of his eyes was a stark contrast to the rest of him. Bits’s breath caught in her chest and the parts of her he alone had ever touched throbbed with want.
Their paths had crossed only a few times over the past two weeks. Ezra had been nothing but kind and polite each time. He acted as if he sought her friendship, and she was trying desperately to give it to him no matter how much it hurt. If friendship was all she could have from him, then she would take it. Eventually, it would be enough.
Now, however, he did not look like a friend. In fact, he barely looked like the Ezra she knew at all. His lips were a harsh line between two clenched jaws. His eyes were narrowed on Mr. Harvey Hicks as if he found the man to be the vilest of creatures.
“I’m sorry?” Mr. Harvey Hicks was as confused by Ezra’s obvious loathing as she was.
“You shall not have her card. In fact, you should find someone else to share your evening with.”
Mr. Harvey Hicks sought her guidance, she could see him do so out of the corner of her eye, but she had none to give. She couldn’t look away from Ezra. His eyes were ablaze with something she couldn’t name. It took her breath and caused her heart to thump wildly in her chest.
“I’m sorry,” Mr. Harvey Hicks said. “I see I misunderstood the situation. My lady. Mr. Nash.” With another bow, he was gone.
“That was poorly done, Ezra,” Lily said once Mr. Harvey Hicks was far enough away she would not be overheard. “Bits wanted to dance, and you just chased away her partner.”
Ezra’s gaze devoured her as it swept from her eyes to her mouth to her chest and back up again. “If she wishes to dance,” he said, offering his arm, “then she can dance with me.”
Chapter 36
So this was what defeat felt like. Gloved hands clenched together. A gentle touch on his shoulder. The curve of a waist beneath his hand.
He should have surrendered long ago.
“You don’t have to do this,” Bits said as the orchestra began to play. It was, of course, a waltz. He should have known the moment he said he would dance with her it wouldn’t be some line dance where he would have time to recover from what her touch did to him. No, it had to be a waltz where he had to hold her in his arms, look into her ever-changing eyes, and think of nothing save how much he wanted her. “I must admit, I missed quite a few dance lessons growing up. There is a good chance I will trod upon the tops of your feet more than the floor itself.”
“The music has started. I’m afraid there is no escaping me now.” She was his, at least for the duration of the song, and there was no way he was letting her go. The past few weeks had been torture. He thought of her from the moment he awoke, until he drifted off to sleep at night, and more often than not she followed him into his dreams as well.
He thought eventually the memory of how she felt beneath him would fade, but if anything, it grew stronger and more urgent with each passing day. He wanted her there again, but this time fully unclothed so he could see all of her magnificent skin on display. He wanted another chance so he could take his time, discovering all the places that would make her giggle, and the ones that would make her moan. One more time to see if it would be just as good.
&n
bsp; It was tempting. Rose was once again in a human body. He didn’t need to deny himself any longer for the sake of the aether. He could spend one glorious night with her without risking his sister’s life. Yet he was self aware enough to know once more wouldn’t be enough. To taste her again would only make his appetite grow, and he feared he would never get his fill.
You could spend the rest of your life trying.
If only that were true. Gods, he wanted it to be true. He wanted to tie her life to his and never let her go, but it wouldn’t be fair to Bits. She was a noble woman, and years ago he’d been made aware of exactly how far beneath the nobility he was.
The silence stretched on between them until he could no longer bear it. “You look quite lovely this evening,” he said. She looked lovely every evening, but tonight she was especially so. Jack had spared no expense with the candles, and the warm, flickering light brought her hair and skin to life.
“Isn’t this dress gorgeous? Alice gave it to me as a gift. She is much too generous, but I can’t help but be glad for her extravagance. I’ve never had so many wonderful compliments bestowed upon me as I have this evening.” She was prattling. “She has truly marvelous taste. I should allow her to dress me always.”
“It’s not the dress.” He didn’t know much about women’s clothing, but he could tell it was finely made. He enjoyed the way it clung to her curves and offered him a rather spectacular view of her perfect breasts when he stood this close to her. Yet, it wasn’t the dress itself, but the body it was sculpted around that warmed his blood and had him fighting his own body’s desire to show its arousal to all who would care to look. “Men like Hicks do not stare inappropriately or make fools of themselves for a dress. It is the thought of you out of it that has captured the interest of every man in this room.”
Bits’s eyes closed and her steps faltered, causing them to nearly collide with another couple. “Please, don’t.” Her words were no more than a whisper. “It was bad enough when the girls were doing it, but not you too.”
“What am I not to do too?”
When her eyes opened they were filled with pain. Pain he had caused?
Would he ever cease hurting her?
“I don’t require false compliments. I am not lacking mirrors, nor eyes. I am well aware of how I look, and having you attempt to assure me of the opposite only makes us both more aware of the truth. So please, don’t. Compliment my intelligence or clockwork designs, but not my appearance. Allow me the fantasy that you have not noted my appearance at all.”
Ezra stopped. He did not care they were in the middle of the dance floor, or that other couples were casting them sharp looks and even sharper words as they attempted to maneuver around them. He would not have this conversation while spinning and twirling about. He took her hand and pulled her from the dance floor. He’d grown up in the halls of Breena Manor, and knew its design as well as the back of his hand. In no more than a dozen steps he had her pressed into a small alcove, hidden from the prying eyes of the crowd.
“You say you have mirrors and eyes, but I do wonder if you know how to use them.” Bits recoiled as if struck. He sounded angry, but by the gods, he was angry. How dare she believe she was anything less than perfect? “Do you not see the intelligent, curious eyes that make me wish to know your every thought? Does your gaze skip over the soft, creamy skin my hands ache to touch? Have you failed to notice the shape of your lips and how they beg for kisses? Have your eyes never lowered to your chest?” His did so, and he was captivated by them yet again. “How could you not know that your breasts are so… are…”
“Overly large? Monstrous?”
“Perfect.” With one finger he tilted her face up to his. “I believe I fell in love with those breasts the first moment I laid eyes on you, which was rather a feat since you were unconscious and well on your way to dying at the time. I’m not certain I didn’t save you in part just so they might continue to exist.” Tears welled in the corners of her eyes, but he pressed on. “You, Lady Elizabeth Warner, are one of the most exquisite creatures I have ever seen, and I will tell you as often as I like, for if I’m to lie in my bed and be tortured by the memory of your face every night, then you should be tortured in some way as well.”
“Ez—”
He wouldn’t hear any argument. Could not. Gods only knew what he would do if she tried to deny herself anymore. So he cut her off the only way he knew how. His lips took hers in a kiss that was as much punishment as it was passion. She gasped, and he used the opportunity to take the kiss deeper.
“If you are tortured, it is your own fault,” she said as his mouth moved to explore her jaw, and then her neck. He found the sensitive place where her neck met her shoulder and sucked the flesh into his mouth, marking her as his, before soothing it with his tongue. “I would happily join you in your bed or anywhere else you wish me to be.” She shouldn’t say such things. It tempted him too greatly and granted him too much power. “It was you who turned me away, not the other way around.” His mouth found her breasts, and she moaned while digging her hands into his hair. “I would have stayed with you forever if only you would have me.”
He would have her. Here. Now. It didn’t matter that the majority of Corrigan stood mere feet away and they could be discovered at any moment. She was his, and he couldn’t deny himself any longer.
His hands found her skirts, and he began bunching them up until the hem was well above her knees. Shifting the heavy fabric to one hand, the other found the silk of the stocking at her knee before tracing upward. He was toying with the satin tie keeping the entire thing up when her hand landed atop his, halting his further progress.
“No,” she said, her fingers tightening on his. “Not here. Not like this.” Her voice shook, but it was determined. “I will not be tupped against the wall and then left alone like some common whore.”
The words were like a bucket of water taken from a winter’s lake being poured over his head. He pulled back, letting her skirts fall back into place.
“I’m sorry. I thought—”
“I want you.” The words caused the pink on her face to turn to red, as if admitting as much was even more revealing than what they had been doing moments before. “But not like this. Not some quick, passion-filled moment that will leave us both riddled with guilt. I want more. I want a gentle seduction and a bed. I want to be allowed to rest against you once it is over. And I would very much like to see you as well as feel you.”
She deserved all that and so much more. More than he could give her. She was right. They couldn’t do this. Not again. He would only hurt her and hate himself.
His rested his forehead against hers, sharing her breath for the last time. “I’m sorry that this is all we could ever have.”
“Why?”
“Bits—”
“Why could we not have more? If you ache for me as you say you do, why can you not simply take me?”
“You’re the daughter of an earl.”
“And you’re the son of a marquess.”
Ezra jerked his head back so quickly she toppled against him and would have tumbled to the ground if she hadn’t been clinging to his jacket.
“How…?”
Bits righted herself and leveled him with a scowl that would have cowed a lesser man. “I’ve been accused of many things in my life, but unobservant has never been one. I saw the way you reacted to the news of the former marquess’s death, and Lily’s description of the house you went to after your mother died could have only been his London home. Plus, you forget, I know your brother. Really, I feel quite foolish for not figuring it out sooner. The two of you bear a striking resemblance.” She cocked her head to one side. “Your father must have been quite handsome in his younger days.”
No one knew the truth of who his father was. Not the twins, nor Jack. Only Hattie had known, and that was only because of a night when he was still new to the effects of alcohol and the euphoria of sex. He’d lost control of his tongue, and instantly r
egretted it, making Hattie swear to never tell another soul. And she hadn’t. It was a secret kept for nearly a decade, and Bits had figured it out in a matter of weeks.
“I do not have a brother,” was the only thing he could think to say.
“Trowbridge — the current Trowbridge, that is — is a fine gentleman. You should be proud to call him your brother. I’m sure he would be happy to return the favor.”
Of course he would. Every young noble wished to acknowledge his Touched half-sibling born on the wrong side of the sheets. His father had been oh-so-willing to acknowledge his existence. That was why he’d called Ezra a horrible mistake and worthless wretch of a human before tossing him into the streets to starve.
“I am a bastard.”
“Oh, I know you certainly can be,” Bits said with a hint of a smile, “but you are so much more than that. You are the kind of man who continually puts others’ needs before his own. You’re a surgeon who accepts live geese as payment when it is all a family can afford. You strive to do the right thing, even when doing so prevents you from taking what you want. You, Ezra Nash, are a gentleman who is as noble by deed as you are by blood.”
“Society does not see me as such.” His father certainly hadn’t.
“To hell with Society. You have made me beautiful where they would leave me as plain at best. Why will you choose their view over mine? Why will you not allow me to make you noble?”
If only it were that easy.
“I have nothing to offer you.”
“Nothing other than your heart, you mean?”
He was hurting her again. He could see it in her eyes. She thought she wasn’t enough, that she was the problem. Couldn’t she see it was him? That he was the lesser person here? He was the son of a whore and a man who would not even offer a room in the stable to his children the night their mother died. He was doing the honorable thing by not dragging her down to where he was.
“You already have my heart, Bits.” She’d had it since the night she stayed awake to comfort him after Hattie’s death, and maybe even before. “But love isn’t the magic potion you believe it to be. It won’t transform who we are or the world around us. My mother loved my father, and you know how well that ended.”
A Dance Like Flame (Of Magic & Machine Book 1) Page 23
