Gilded Lily

by Delphine Dryden

  “Roughly. Miss Murcheson—Freddie, we really cannot do this. It would be madness. Not just because of the consequences if we’re apprehended, I mean the entire project itself. There will be guards, passwords. I’m not even sure which of these uniforms one would wear in an undersea station. Some of them are for workdays, some for dress, and then there’s the question of which medals and other bits to use. It’s quite complicated.”

  “I’m sure a trip to the library would answer those questions. As for the rest, the tunnel entrance wasn’t guarded. Not the one on this side, at least. It doesn’t even look ready for general use yet. How stringently will they be guarding a secret entrance they don’t expect anyone to be using yet?”

  “We can’t go in the middle of the night again. What about the workmen?” His voice cracked under the strain. She hastened to reassure him.

  “They’ll see two officers who clearly know about the lift and the secret tunnel, so they’ll assume we’re authorized to use them. They’re workmen, not guards. If we look like we belong there, they’ll never question us. It isn’t their job.” It was a truth she’d learned on the streets of London, and it seemed to apply in all walks of life. “The trick is not to pay them any notice. And if one of us is carrying some sort of file or paperwork, that would help too. People always look more purposeful when they’re carrying pieces of paper.”

  He frowned, considering that for a moment. “You’re right. Why is that, do you suppose?”

  “I haven’t a clue. Here, put this jacket on.”

  Barnabas took it from her with clear reluctance, shrugging it on. Freddie’s breath caught when he settled the jacket into place on his shoulders, fastened a few of the brass crown-and-anchor buttons on the double breast, and looked up at her for approval. There really was something about a man in uniform, she decided.

  “It seems to fit well enough. You also look quite dashing.”

  “Thank you. I wonder if impersonating an officer of the Royal Navy is a hanging offense. One to add to my list. Is it a worse offense, the higher the rank?” He frowned and examined the stripes on the jacket’s cuffs, fingering the gold braid. “That’s odd.”

  “What’s odd?” She swung another of the jackets into place, one of the smaller-looking ones. It was still several magnitudes too large. Mrs. Pinkerton would have her work cut out for her.

  Barnabas plucked at one of her jacket sleeves, holding her arm up to compare to his own. “See the difference? Yours has two stripes, for a lieutenant. Mine has that third one in the middle. I think that means a lieutenant commander.”

  “Well done, Phineas.” She tried not to notice that he’d stopped holding the jacket cuff and was now holding her wrist. She wasn’t a particularly small woman, nor was he especially large for a man, but his fingers overlapped easily.

  “Yes, I suppose.” She heard the frown in his voice before she raised her eyes to see it on his face. “But he never told us about the promotion. It must have happened right before . . .”

  On impulse, she lifted her free hand to his cheek, smoothing her thumb over the worry line next to his mouth. “We’ll find out what happened to him.”

  “So optimistic.”

  When he smiled, she could feel the muscles in his face move under her fingers, a strangely intimate connection. He had shaved before the evening’s event and his skin was still smooth. She knew she should take her hand away, but it simply wasn’t happening. In an effort to seem less like she was fondling him, she moved her fingers to his forehead and adopted an expression of concern.

  “Earlier you looked a bit overcome, and you disappeared before I had a chance to inquire as to your health. Are you well?”

  “Do I feel feverish?” His smile had changed, warmed somehow, sparking his eyes with unexpected devilry.

  “Not particularly.”

  He lifted her hand away and brought it down to his lips, kissing bare skin where he’d previously been thwarted by silk. She’d had her hand kissed before, many times. Why was this so very different?

  “I ought to. I’m burning with passion.”

  “Ugh. Terrible!” She tried to pull her hand away but he kept it firmly in his, grinning wildly as she started to laugh despite herself.

  She’d come to his room with some level of seduction in mind and been distracted by talking and uniforms and plotting. The plotting had led to humor and hand-kissing, however. Now it seemed the most natural thing in the world to lean toward him, tugging gently on their joined hands, and rise up on her toes to kiss his smiling mouth.

  They’d sorted some things out in the closet earlier. This time, things went more smoothly from the start. So smoothly, in fact, that in no time at all her arms were wrapped around Barnabas’s neck, and his hands were venturing down toward her bottom, and she couldn’t even remember taking the naval jacket off but she must have, because there it was, flung over the open trunk.

  His lips and tongue felt too perfect against hers. She couldn’t stop kissing him, possibly ever. She was drugged on it, intoxicated, as hopelessly enthralled as any opium addict. And his body, and the way hers fit so neatly against it. How had she done without that for so long? How could she ever leave this room again?

  “God. Freddie, we really can’t do this.”

  But he would keep talking.

  “Shh. Kiss me again.”

  He did, sweet and soft at first, a feathery sweep of his lips over hers. Then, after a pause, he dove in and did some things with his tongue that made her knees go trembly and the rest of her tingly. And hands . . . he stopped pretending he wasn’t trying to fondle her posterior, and simply reached down and did the thing properly. Cupping, and squeezing, and pulling her closer. She could feel his erection, hard against her belly, a source of trepidation and interest. When she squirmed, his grip tightened and his kisses grew more insistent, demanding. He shifted from her mouth to her neck, burning her skin with his breath until she melted under the heat.

  “We need to stop,” he mumbled, sounding less than convincing.

  His exposed throat drew her again, as it had earlier. Freddie turned her head and flicked her tongue against the divot between his collarbones, then licked a path up to his ear. By the time she arrived at his earlobe, Barnabas was groaning, his head thrown back, eyes closed.

  “We should lie down,” she suggested, nipping his ear.

  “That is the last thing we should do. Oh, hell.” He wrapped his arms around her waist, lifted her and staggered to the bed. They climbed up together, ending in a messy tangle of limbs and night rail with Freddie on top.

  She had officially ventured beyond her previous experience around the time of the bottom-fondling, so she was now operating purely on instinct and guesswork. Shoving her voluminous skirts out of the way, she straddled his hips and sat up to assess things.

  “Perhaps it’s a bit like riding a horse?” When she moved experimentally, Barnabas bucked, not unhorselike, beneath her. Except it was somehow absolutely nothing like a horse, and it made her light-headed with wanting more.

  “Your legs . . .” He ran his hands from her knees to her thighs until his fingers disappeared beneath layers of cotton voile and lace. And then he kept going. “You’re not wearing drawers.”

  “You’ve gone past my legs,” she gasped, at the feel of his hands on the bare skin of her hips. He gripped and pulled her down as he rose again, and Freddie felt a blush begin to spread from her face down to her chest. Overheated, overcome, she tugged at the ribbon that closed the neck of her night rail, and unbuttoned the top button so she could breathe more comfortably.

  He arched his hips into hers again. “Like riding a horse.”

  “This is nothing at all like riding a horse and you know it.” Was that her voice, low and breathless? She could hardly recognize it, hardly recognize herself in this wanton creature she’d become. But she liked that woman. She could be that wom
an. Fearless, taking what she wanted. Once she learned what that was, at least. She moved her hips, scraping her most sensitive flesh against the fine wool of his trousers and bearing down just so, seeking the spot that needed the pressure most and groaning in appreciation when she found it.

  Barnabas freed one of his hands and unhooked more of her buttons, until a draft ran down the center of her chest. Then his fingers disappeared again, finding her breast beneath the ridiculous nightclothes. It was good, almost too good to bear, when he brushed close to her nipple and squeezed. Freddie stopped moving for a moment and he gripped tighter on her hip, reminding her of their tempo.

  When he finally stopped teasing around its periphery and plucked at her nipple, her body experienced a confusing rush of too-much-to-sort-out, all the sensations overwhelming her. Then the heat between her legs and the tingling ache of her breast met somewhere in the middle and Freddie exploded, whimpering helplessly as the pleasure took over. Hot, wet, then wetter still as Barnabas cried out and froze beneath her, gasping.

  She collapsed to his chest, nose buried in his neck, embarrassed now that the moment was over to know that he’d seen her lose herself like that. Barnabas’s arms encircled her, holding her tight, as their breathing slowly settled back to something approaching normal.

  Somehow this hadn’t been quite what she expected. Though she was no longer sure what she had been expecting, nor was she sure what to call what had just happened. Finally, the silence grew too thick and she took it on herself to break it.

  “What did we just do?” she mumbled into the warm, salty skin of his throat.

  Barnabas kissed her forehead. The gesture was so sweet that tears sprang to Freddie’s eyes. “I’m not sure, but I’m fairly certain I’ve ruined you. It seemed quite ruinous. Delightfully so.”

  “If anything, I ruined you. But nobody saw us. Ruining requires a witness, I think.”

  “You think? Aren’t young ladies supposed to know these things?”

  “My mother is French,” she reminded him. “Different set of rules.”

  When he laughed, she loved the way his body moved under hers, solid and reassuring. She snuggled closer as he spoke. “I’m certain her rules still wouldn’t allow for . . . that, whatever that was.”

  “But it wasn’t . . . the thing itself? The primary activity that—”

  “I know what thing you meant, and no. It most certainly was not.”

  “Are you sure? Have you ever done . . . that?”

  “Gentlemen don’t speak of these things. But I am quite sure.”

  “So you have.”

  “I—yes, if you must know. A few times.”

  She lifted up, bracing herself on her arms so she could see him. His face was flushed, hair at his forehead slightly damp as if he’d just run a race. He looked quite happy and peaceful, and more than a little sleepy.

  “I should go back to my room.”

  “You should have stayed in your room to begin with,” he chided her gently. But he was stroking her thighs again, up and down in slow, easy passes, not as if he minded at all that she’d behaved in such a shocking manner. “And you should go back soon, it’s true.”

  Irrationally, she wanted him to beg or command her to stay, express an inability to survive the rest of the night without her and the consequences be damned. She definitely hadn’t come with that sort of thinking in mind, and suspected it was a product of the same strange emotional weight that seemed to accompany this . . . whatever they’d just done.

  Now that their bodies were cooling off, things were growing sticky and unpleasant between them. Peeling herself away, Freddie slipped off the bed, settling her night rail down around her and smoothing it out as best she could with her hands.

  “I didn’t mean you had to go right this second,” he protested, following her off the bed. He dropped his braces from his shoulders as he did so, tugging his shirttails out to let them hang. Covering up the evidence, Freddie realized, because his trousers were probably a mess.

  “Too many long afternoons and late nights recently. We both need our rest.” She reached into the trunk and pulled out the uniform pieces she thought were most promising, bundling them in her arms and holding them in front of her like a shield as she faced him again.

  “You really mean to go through with this, Freddie? Walking right into that station—assuming it’s there to begin with—and leaving in a submersible?”

  “With or without you,” she confirmed.

  He grimaced, then pried the wad of clothing from her and tucked it firmly under one arm, pulling her closer with the other. “With me. God help me.”

  He kissed her forehead again—sweet, why was that so inexpressibly sweet?—then her nose, then finally her lips. The heat wasn’t spent, and they both left the kiss reluctantly.

  Barnabas escorted her to the door, checked the hallway, and pressed the bundle back into her arms before pressing a final swift kiss to her mouth.

  “Tomorrow, we’ll plot. Tonight, we sleep.”

  She nodded, not trusting herself to speak without her voice breaking.

  “Good night, Freddie.”

  A whisper wouldn’t give her away. “Good night, Barnabas.”

  She had planned to make it back to her room before letting herself cry. But as soon as his door was closed, the tears began to fall.

  ELEVEN

  “YOU’RE MAD, MISS.”

  Dan had said it before, but this time he seemed to mean it literally. There was not a touch of admiration in his voice, and Freddie heard more than a little fear.

  She fingered the tips of her newly bobbed hair as she settled into the barouche for the short drive home. The curls sprang back against her touch, surprisingly strong and resilient. Sophie had tsked and her maid Angelica had wept as she cut it, but even she had to admit the end result was charming and at the very vanguard of fashion.

  “You don’t like my new hairstyle?”

  “What? Oh, I see. You’ve gone and whacked your hair off. No, I’m not one for bobbed hair on women. I wasn’t talking about that and you know it.” He chucked to the horses, who started a lazy, ambling trot down the tree-lined street. Freddie leaned forward to avoid shouting their conversation. The pony trap was so much more convenient for talking, as they could sit beside one another, but the barouche was required for a proper daylight visit to Lady Sophronia’s. At least the horses were quieter than a steam engine, and the route from the front of the house was infinitely more scenic.

  “Do you mean the uniform?”

  “You can’t have any good use for it. And you’ve gone and dragged my mum into this. Trousers are one thing, an officer’s uniform is another. She can’t explain that away if somebody sees her with it. And you’re putting Lady Sophie at risk to boot. I don’t like it, Fred, not one bit.”

  The big man didn’t like her doing much of what she did, but he’d always come around to her side before. He was fiercely protective of his family, however, and she hadn’t considered the possibility that his mother might be at greater risk because of the uniform. While she’d been having her hair cropped, Dan had been delivering the garments to his mother. The threat must have occurred to him then.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t think. Retrieve the uniform tonight, please, with my apologies to your mother. I can find somebody else to cut it down.”

  “Oh, your pet fop knows a good tailor, does he? You’ll waltz yourself straight up to Savile Row to have it done?”

  While Freddie thought Barnabas had probably patronized at least one good tailor on Savile Row in his lifetime, she also suspected Dan’s anger had little to do with tailoring.

  “I would hardly call Lord Smith-Grenville a fop. His taste in garments is utterly bland and conventional.” She might have said the same about the man himself a few days ago. Now, she blushed to recall their encounter of the night before, the delicious
madness and the unaccountable melancholy that had followed. She still had no good explanation for that and was almost glad she’d been able to avoid having to see him today by arranging this open visit to Sophie’s. Hard as it had been to leave his room last night, she was confused at her hesitation to confront him now. It wasn’t as if she were ashamed, and heaven knew he hadn’t seemed unduly upset by the evening’s occurrences.

  “He’s a limp-wristed milksop and you’re not safe with him.”

  “What on earth do you mean?” Why would Dan think she wasn’t safe with Barnabas? Had he somehow spotted her sneaking about the house last night?

  “I let you out of my sight with him for a quarter of an hour, and a bloomin’ earthquake happens. Now you’re up to some new foolishness with these Navy costumes, which means it’s back to the docks unless I miss my guess. What will it be this time, a typhoon?”

  Oh.

  “Typhoons do not occur in the English Channel. Dan, you’re being quite unreasonable, and more than a little unfair. Smith-Grenville didn’t cause the earthquake. And he didn’t even want to accompany me. He has to stay with me. My father hired him, after all.”

  Was that it, the source of her strange uneasiness regarding Smith-Grenville? She couldn’t still think of him as her father’s man, not after last night. And yet . . . money and power were strong motivators. Strong enough to make her father destroy the livelihoods of countless fisher folk, apparently without a backward glance. Was Barnabas so different?

  “Your father hired him to look after you and report if you seemed to be getting into trouble. He hasn’t done that, has he?”

  “Well, no. Not that it’s any fault of his own. I’m the one to blame, if anything. You know I always find my father’s men out.”