It didn’t matter that she’d felt that kiss on her mouth the rest of the night, nor that she’d lain awake for a long time, wondering what had possessed her and if he thought it meant he’d won. If there had been the slightest trace of triumph in his attitude the next morning, she vowed, she would tell him it had been a dreadful mistake on her part, never to be repeated . . .
But he hadn’t. He had greeted her the next morning in the same way he had always done. Not so much as a lingering glance betrayed any smugness. And somehow Bianca never got around to saying it was a mistake, or that she wished it had never happened, or that it must never happen again.
Even though it never would happen again, obviously.
He pushed back his chair. “Shall you come with me today? I intend to view another shop.”
“Oh?” She gulped too large a sip of chocolate at his voice and winced as it burned her throat. She’d got distracted watching him talk, thinking about how she was never going to kiss his mouth again, and she’d not been attending to what he said. “Er—where?”
“Cheapside,” he said. “’Tis for the proposal your father agreed to read.”
Ah. About the new line of dinnerware. One of them had been able to keep their mind on business. Flustered, she also rose. “Of course.”
“Are you warming to the idea?” he asked, his eyes dancing and a smile lurking about his mouth. There was a drop of coffee on his lower lip, and Bianca couldn’t tear her eyes from it.
“I— Well— Perhaps—” Compulsively she reached out and smoothed away the coffee with her thumb.
Max went still. Bianca flushed. “There was some coffee,” she muttered, waving one hand toward his face.
“Thank you,” he murmured. And to her shock he took her hand. Her clenched fingers unfolded in his, and then he put her thumb to his lips, sucking lightly. She felt the touch of his tongue and her knees almost gave way. His eyes flashed and he released her. “I’ll send for the carriage.”
He walked out, leaving her gripping the back of a chair for support. Her heart threatened to crack her ribs. What was she thinking, touching him like that? She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Don’t be foolish, Bianca,” she whispered to herself.
“Ma’am?”
The voice of Martha, the hired maid, made her jump. “Yes, yes, quite well,” she exclaimed, then bolted from the room when the girl looked at her oddly. Hearing Max’s voice at the bottom of the stairs, she turned and rushed up. Her head seemed totally disconnected from her mouth—to say nothing of her hands.
A quarter hour later, she felt in command of herself once more. Max handed her into the carriage and she didn’t say or do anything lunatic, but thanked him very civilly. The ride itself passed without trouble as well, and then he helped her down in a busy thoroughfare.
Bianca looked around with interest. This was a very different sort of street compared to the one with the large showroom where Max envisioned well-laid dining tables. Here were ordinary women, bustling servants, working men delivering goods and manning the carts, and merchants welcoming customers into their shops. She felt instantly more at home here than in York Street.
The agent let them in, and a bell tinkled at their entrance. Bianca inhaled happily, despite the dusty air. Here was the quaint little shop she had pictured, with shelves along the walls and a large round table in the middle. There was a wide counter at one side, with wider, deeper shelves behind it, and there was a place in front of the window to display wares to passersby. It was perfect.
“I can see by your face this pleases you,” said Max with a smile.
She couldn’t help a small laugh. “It does. This is what I pictured when you began talking of showrooms and shop premises.”
“And it’s a very good idea,” he said, “for Fortuna wares.”
“What is Fortuna ware?”
“What I propose to call the new, simpler wares.” He drew her forward and turned her to face the windows, stepping behind her to leave the view unimpeded. “Look at the people passing by. People who could never hope to afford the coffee service Lord Dalway ordered, but who would like something quality, something lovely, something above ordinary Delftware and plain pottery. Imagine them eyeing the candleholders and little plum pots of rouge—”
Bianca turned her head. He was right behind her, his outstretched arm brushing hers as he sketched his vision in the air in front of her. “Perusia doesn’t make candleholders.”
He tipped his head, meeting her eyes. “Fortuna ware will include candleholders, and chamber pots and butter crocks and ink pots. Any item that could be made of earthenware or porcelain.”
Bianca wasn’t so sure her father would agree to that. “That plum pot was a lark, nothing more than some experiments I tried with soft paste porcelain for my glazes—”
“It was not a lark, it was a brilliant idea,” he replied. “Fine ladies have little pots of silver and blown glass. Imagine how pleased a shopkeeper’s wife would be to have something just as beautiful, but costing a fraction of the silver, on her dressing table. I picture items made at a cost such that even your own artisans could afford some.”
Well . . . when he put it that way . . . “How much do you propose to produce?”
He must have sensed that she was coming around to his point of view. He grinned, looking rather like a pirate who’d just unlocked the chest of treasure. “A modest run to start, but if it does well, I would produce as much as we can sell.”
“Perusia is where Papa’s heart lies,” she told him. “He will always care more about it than anything else.”
“So he should.” Almost idly he touched the loose curl lying on her shoulder. Bianca had liked the stylish arrangement, so she told Jennie to fix her hair that way again, leaving off the powder and sticky pomatum.
“After all,” said Max, his voice deepening, “when you find yourself holding something beautiful and unique, you want to treasure it, and safeguard it. Only a fool would let it slip through his fingers.” He twisted the curl around his finger as he spoke.
Bianca inhaled roughly. The letting agent had discreetly vanished, leaving them alone in the shop. She was practically in Max’s arms. He wasn’t talking about Papa, or about pottery, and she knew it. “When I kissed you the other night—”
“Yes,” he whispered.
“It was a mistake,” she said, striving for firm confidence and only achieving breathless pleading.
He touched her chin, tipping up her face toward him. “No, it wasn’t.” And he kissed her.
She could have protested, or stepped away; he only held her chin, and that but lightly. Instead she stood and let him make love to her mouth, not so hungrily as before but with a leisurely thoroughness that sent tremors through her.
When he lifted his head, she swayed. His arm went around her waist in an instant, and his hand, cupped around her jaw, held her cheek to his chest. For a moment she rested against him. He was the perfect height to lean against, remarkably solid and strong. His broadcloth waistcoat was warm and smelled faintly of sandalwood—like him. And she could hear his heart pounding away, almost as fast as her own.
I want you, and no one else. She wasn’t sure she believed the latter part of that, but she was convinced of the first part.
A door opening behind them sent her lurching away from him. As before, Max let her go. It was unnerving. She had thought a rogue would seize every opportunity to seduce her, that he would constantly be on watch for any sign of weakness in her refusal, ready to coerce and flatter and wheedle his way into her affections—before crushing them.
This, though. This was far more insidious. She was beginning to fear that he’d been right on their wedding day. The thought of asking him to show her all those pleasures he’d hinted at—the pleasures she was sure he’d had with his other lovers—was hovering at the edges of her mind until she thought it would drive her mad.
“Have you any questions, Mr. St. James?” It was Mr. Cooke, the letting agent, out of disc
retion or patience. He stood watching them with a faintly knowing smile. Bianca glared at him, wondering how much he’d seen.
“A few,” said Max. Unlike Bianca, he seemed to have shaken off any lingering effects of that devastating kiss and returned to his businesslike self.
So she thought, until she saw the flush on the back of his neck, where his hair was pulled back into a neat queue. Until she caught the swift but scorching glance he sent her way when Mr. Cooke wasn’t looking. Until she saw the tremor in his hand as he reached for the door as they left.
And as they rode home in the carriage, once more polite and dignified, all she could wonder was how long she could withstand him like this.
Chapter Nineteen
Despite not being in London long, even Bianca knew about Vauxhall Gardens. They weren’t new or novel, but they had outstripped Ranelagh in popularity and fame, and when an invitation arrived from Lady Dalway, inviting her and Max to join a party there in a few nights, she was undeniably intrigued.
To her astonishment, Max was not.
He read the card and put it aside without a word before heading up the stairs. Bianca, having been waiting for him to come home and fully expecting to be told it was all the rage among society and of course they would go, scrambled after him. “Do you not wish to accept?”
He said nothing until they reached the drawing room, and he had closed the doors behind them. “Do you?”
“Oh—well—I presumed you would want to.”
“Do you want to go?” he repeated.
Warily she looked at him. “Should I not?”
“So you do.” His brow quirked wryly.
Bianca flushed. “A little. Vauxhall is famous, even in Marslip.” She hesitated, but when he said nothing more, only picked up a discarded newspaper and read the page, she couldn’t resist asking, “Why do you not want to go?”
“If you wish to go, we shall,” he said instead, still reading.
Bianca pursed her lips in frustration. “Max.”
His head came up. He looked at her in surprised awareness. Bianca realized with a small cringe that it was the first time she had called him by his Christian name. Undaunted she forged ahead. “What are you not telling me? If there is a reason to decline, then of course—”
“There’s no reason.” He let the paper fall and came toward her. “You called me Max.”
She jerked her head without meeting his gaze. “It is your preferred name.”
His mouth curved. “It is, but I’ve never heard you say it.”
“Of course I have!”
“But I never heard it.” He paused. “I like it.”
That admission, uttered in his low, rough growl that did terrible things to her self-possession, was almost too much for her. Bianca kept her poise by the thinnest of margins. “Why don’t you want to go to Vauxhall?”
His chest rose and fell in a silent sigh. “It’s nothing. Lady Dalway is very fond of the place, but I’m not.”
“Why? What is it like?” She lost all pretense of reserve in the face of his clear reluctance. Somehow sensing that he did not want to go, for reasons she didn’t know but was suddenly wildly curious to discover, had made her want to go more than ever. “I read there is an orchestra, and singers, and tree-lined paths in a grove, and even fireworks.”
“All true,” he said with a smile. He was still very close to her.
“What else is there?” she pressed.
“People who drink too much,” he replied. “All manner of scoundrels. There is a spirit of . . . permissiveness that you might find shocking.”
“I expected all of London to be filled with scoundrels,” she said frankly. “It’s not been nearly as bad as I thought.”
He laughed. “Then we shall go, my dear.” He paused, as if waiting, then prompted, “Are you pleased?”
“Yes.”
“Say it,” he whispered.
Heat rolled through her. “Yes, Max.”
He looked at her with a heavy-lidded gaze that made her feel like she might burst into flame. “I like to hear it. Say it again.”
“It’s just a name,” she tried to say.
“Bianca.”
The way he said her name caused a physical twinge of response in her belly. She wet her lips, and noticed how avidly he watched. “Max,” she breathed.
“Yes,” he said as his mouth touched hers.
Bianca wasn’t sure who had moved toward whom this time. She was fully aware that her hands had come up onto his chest, and that she was leaning into him. His hand settled lightly on her waist, and she felt it in her toes.
“This is not what I expected,” she whispered, her whole body throbbing as his lips skimmed over her jaw to her ear.
“Why not?” he rasped. His teeth nipped lightly at her earlobe, making her quiver.
“Because I don’t like you.” She was barely aware of what she said.
“Not even a little bit?” His hand was on her back, easing her closer to him—not that she needed much encouragement. His other hand threaded into her hair.
Bianca couldn’t stop a little sigh of contentment. He was kissing her neck and it might be making her melt. “You know I don’t want to . . .”
He hummed in disappointment. “I wish you did.” He brushed a soft kiss on the corner of her mouth. “At least a little bit.”
She dragged her eyes open. He was so close, so dark, so wretchedly beautiful. Some of her sense resurfaced. “You didn’t want to marry me. You proposed to marry Cathy. It’s not me you wanted at all.”
His dark eyes glittered. “You think I don’t want you?” With a sudden tug he pulled her against him. “If I hadn’t wanted you, I would have said no in the sacristy.”
She laid her fingers on his lips, forestalling any more kisses for the moment. “Do you mean that?”
A frown creased his brow. “Yes.”
“Why did you want to marry Cathy?”
His grip on her loosened. Bianca waited. “I thought . . . it was to be a marriage of business convenience. Your father has no son to inherit the business—”
“He has two daughters,” she began hotly, but he put up one hand.
“Two daughters who might eventually marry, putting the business into the hands of someone other than a Tate. In my visit to Perusia I sensed that Miss Tate, your sister, has no desire to direct and lead Perusia.” His gaze was serious and steady, as if urging her to believe him. “I do. I can help Perusia succeed and prosper for years to come. I hope you agree with that, after our time in London. So I offered marriage to your sister, proposing not just a business partnership but a promise of protection and care for your father’s daughters.”
Well . . . perhaps that wasn’t so coldhearted and mercenary as she’d thought. And Bianca could not deny that he’d demonstrated value and commitment to Perusia in everything he’d done in London. “That doesn’t mean you wanted to marry me.”
“I am fiercely pleased to be married to you,” he said in a low voice.
Bianca’s mouth was dry. “Because you want me. You want to take me to bed.”
His gaze dropped to her mouth, and he didn’t bother to deny it. “I want you to want it, too.”
Bianca was afraid to admit that she did. She had already been weak and allowed her alleged boundary to flex and shift until here she was, pressed up against him with his arms around her. And just weeks ago she had sworn to hate and despise him forever.
Of course, she was also coming to realize that he wasn’t much like the person she had imagined him to be then.
Max’s already-low desire to go to Vauxhall fell even further upon a closer reading of Serafina’s card.
“A bloody masquerade,” he said in despair. “She’s trying to ruin me.”
Lawrence looked on with sympathy. He had formerly been valet to Percy Willoughby, who’d been forced to slink back to his father’s estate in disgrace after a disastrous night at Vauxhall’s gaming tables. He was well aware of how badly things could go
in Vauxhall. “May I recommend a domino, sir?”
Max thought of the outfits he’d worn to previous masquerades, including the white sheet and ivy wreath—and nothing more—he’d worn once to win two hundred pounds from his mate Henry Campbell. He’d proclaimed himself Dionysus and had an extremely debauched evening in the woodland. “Perhaps that would be best.”
“Shall I advise Jennie on Mrs. St. James’s costume as well?”
Dear God. What would Bianca want to be? “Most likely a domino as well,” he said, hoping it was so. She was from Marslip, where women didn’t dress as Turkish concubines or Egyptian goddesses for an evening of wicked fun. Surely she’d be more comfortable in a simple black cloak and mask.
Lawrence’s gaze cut away. “As you say, sir.”
Something about it pricked Max’s attention. “What?” he asked.
The valet studied his hands. “I suspect madam will like something more intriguing, sir.”
Max went still. “What do you mean by that?”
“Begging your pardon, sir, but Lady Dalway and Mrs. Farquhar have been to visit her, and I have no doubt they’ve told her all about it. Before the week is out, they’ll have her agreeing to dress as an Arcadian shepherdess or a nun.”
He let out his breath slowly. “Right.” He was being ridiculous. Bianca was too sensible to dress as anything dreadful.
“I shall endeavor to guide Jennie toward the most dignified and proper costume,” Lawrence assured him.
Max nodded and waved him away. For a long moment he stood, tapping his fingers on his hip as he stared out the window.
It was one night in Vauxhall. One night with his friends. Bianca wanted to go, and he wanted to please her. He would stay close by her side, attentive and protective, and ignore—as if they were cold in their graves—any former acquaintances who might dare speak to him. It was one night.
About a Rogue EPB Page 17
