He recognised the sentiments were beneath him. Jealousy was for an insecure man and his reaction was influenced by his own bias. The captain was his sworn enemy, a man who stood at odds with his own agenda.
Stepan crossed his arms, fingers impatiently tapping against his biceps. This dance had gone on interminably. It hardly seemed fair when his own quadrille with Anna-Maria had sped by hours ago. Finally, the dance ended and couples departed the dance floor as new couples took their place. But Anna-Maria and the captain did not come. Stepan counselled himself to caution. He needn’t leap to conclusions, but he could stride towards them. He crossed the room at discreet pace and made for the stairs. At least with the assembly room, there was only one way in and one way out. Downstairs, he asked the barman if a couple meeting their description had gone out.
‘Oh, aye.’ The barman smiled and jerked his head towards the inn yard. ‘The captain said the lady needed some air.’
Stepan nodded his thanks and headed towards the door. Now he could jump to conclusions. He knew what the captain was thinking. He was a man, after all, and he knew how men thought when they had a pretty girl in their arms, but what had Anna-Maria been thinking to go outside in the dark with a man she barely knew? Outside, he gave his eyes a moment to adjust to the lack of light in the inn yard. Dimitri would kill him if anything happened to Anna-Maria or her reputation before they could get her to London. He quartered the yard with his gaze, catching a flicker of light from the right corner and the lilt of feminine laughter. Thank goodness for small things like crystal heart necklaces that flashed in the dark.
Stepan strode towards the flicker, determination growing with every step. Good Lord, the captain had his hands all over her, at her waist, at her neck. Stepan wasted no time. ‘Step away from the lady, sir. She’s under my protection.’ He would ask only once with words. If he had to ask twice, the second time would be with his fist.
‘Stepan!’ Anna-Maria drew back from the captain, startled at the intrusion and had the good sense to look somewhat abashed. Not nearly penitent enough for Stepan’s tastes, however. He was entirely cognisant of the fact that the captain hadn’t exactly been forcing his attentions on her.
‘I hope you are feeling better?’ Stepan enquired, for the sake of saving face. ‘The innkeeper said you were taking the air.’
‘I am quite fine,’ Anna-Maria retorted stiffly, but she came to him. Good. The further away she was from the captain the better.
Denning shot Stepan a sly look. ‘A thousand pardons, I had not meant to keep her outside for an undue amount of time.’ He made a small bow in Anna-Maria’s direction. ‘Your servant, miss. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll take my leave.’
Alone with Anna-Maria in the dark, Stepan let his anger boil over. ‘What were you thinking?’ he asked through gritted teeth, trying to keep his voice down.
‘What were you thinking?’ Anna-Maria snapped. ‘I did not need rescuing.’
‘Yes, you did. He had his hands all over you! In another few moments who knows what he might have tried.’ This was exactly what he’d feared would happen when she’d shown up on his doorstep wanting to dance and meet people.
‘He might have tried to kiss me,’ Anna-Maria said in sarcastically exaggerated shock. ‘A kiss! Oh, sweet heavens, that is the worst crime imaginable. No one steals kisses but the lowest of men and the loosest of women. Oh, what levels of depravity.’
‘Stop it!’ Stepan hissed. ‘You’re mocking me.’
‘Yes, I am,’ Anna-Maria answered evenly. ‘We did come out for air because I asked him. I was feeling a bit light-headed in there with all the heat. And, yes, he might have kissed me, but I wouldn’t have minded.’
‘I would have.’ Stepan scowled. ‘You can’t go around kissing men, Anna-Maria. You know better than that. It wouldn’t have been tolerated in Kuban and it’s not tolerated here. Girls caught kissing gentlemen can end up married whether they will it or not.’
She scoffed. ‘I hardly think every girl who steals a kiss in the dark ends up compromised.’ Anna-Maria paused and then let out a huff. ‘Then nothing’s changed but the miles. England is no different than Kuban. Except perhaps for men.’
Stepan blew out a breath. He did not want to be having this discussion here in the middle of an inn yard at midnight. Strains of music floated outside, reminding him of what he really wanted and that was to be indoors with Anna-Maria waltzing. He’d paid his dues tonight. He tried a complete about-face. ‘That’s our cue, Anna—shall we forget this nonsense and go inside? I believe this dance is mine.’ He offered her a smile in the dark.
‘No.’ Anna-Maria’s answer was definite. ‘Call for the carriage. I want to go home. You cannot buy me off so easily. Do you think all you have to do is dangle a pretty prize in front of me and I’ll forgive you?’
Stepan recognised a losing battle when he saw one. There would be no waltzing. He knew Anna-Maria well enough to know she would not relent when she had something on her mind. It would be better to have her say it in the privacy of the carriage than out here where she could cause a scene he might have to explain to Dimitri later. He waved to the coachman to make ready. ‘I do not think you’re simple, Anna-Maria.’ Hardly simple. Just the contrary. She was as complex as the crystal heart she wore about her neck, multifaceted and ever-changing with the light. She kept a man on his toes.
She was silent as he helped her into the carriage. He would settle for the silent treatment. He would gladly let her be alone with her thoughts since he didn’t relish being the whipping boy for whatever was eating at her. He suspected it was more than just being caught outside with the captain.
The coach lurched into motion and so did Anna-Maria. He was not going to get off easy. ‘Are you the only one who gets to kiss me?’
Stepan coughed. ‘What sort of question is that?’
‘One that requires an answer, as most questions do.’ He could feel her bristling from her seat.
‘I kissed you to teach you a lesson about poking sleeping dogs,’ he reminded her tersely. He rather wished she hadn’t brought up that kiss.
‘You treat me just like Dimitri does, like I am still a little girl.’
At the words, Stepan’s control snapped. ‘No one in that assembly hall tonight thought you were a little girl.’ Least of all him. She’d tortured him, dancing by all smiles in other men’s arms, making them laugh, making them want her. She had no idea of her effect on them or on him. She flirted without trying, with her eyes, her smile, with an unconscious touch on a gentleman’s sleeve. He’d have to tell her to stop that. She touched men far too often in conversation and while men might like it, the gossips in London would not. They’d make a meal of it.
He felt her hand on his arm now. ‘Does that summation include you, Stepan?’
‘Does it matter?’ He was on full alert. She was moving, leaving her seat and coming to his. Not just his seat, but his lap. ‘What are you doing, Anna-Maria?’
‘By my calculations you owe me.’
Ah, his silly words from breakfast. He’d known he was going to regret those the moment he’d spoken them. His eyes dropped of their own accord to her lips, his voice hoarse. ‘What do you want?’
‘A kiss.’ She wiggled on his lap, her arms going around his neck. ‘If you’re the only one allowed to kiss me, you’d best get on with it.’
Chapter Eight
One final thought crossed Anna’s mind as Stepan’s mouth took hers: she might have asked for this kiss, but Stepan had started it in full compliance. His mouth pressed to hers, rough and demanding, the clean pine and starch scent of him surrounding her as she answered with equal ferocity, each of them perhaps exacting their own payment for an evening filled with equal parts pleasure and proving: her proving that she was more than a little girl and him proving... What? She had no idea, but whatever it was, he was intently giving it his all.
She m
oaned as Stepan’s hand moved to the base of her throat, his mouth dropping to her neck, where he sucked hard enough at the tender skin to wring a startled gasp from her. She’d never imagined people doing such things, marking each other in such ways, and she found the exercise exhilarating. Spurred by Stepan’s efforts, her own teeth found the lobe of his ear in exquisite retaliation. He groaned as she nipped at him, experimenting with her own power. He did not let her experiment for long. His hands were on the move, sliding up over her muslin bodice, the flats of his palms coming over her breasts, pressing against the peaks of her nipples, his thumbs beginning to stroke them and frustratingly so. The intimacy of his touch, of his caress, was not nearly enough.
She cupped his jawline in her hands, framing his face for her kiss, her mouth taking his in full, her hands moving to undo the exquisite tangle of his cravat, exposing a piece of his bare skin, small as it was. She placed a kiss to the bare triangle at his neck, a wicked thought taking her: she wished he was naked, that she was naked, that his hands touched real flesh, not just curves cased in muslin and cotton. It suddenly seemed a poor facsimile of what could be.
His hands cupped her breasts and she trembled, warmth pooling low inside at her core, delicious and thick like English treacle. She gave a soft, low sigh of pleasure and let her body sink against Stepan’s, her softness against the rigid hardness of his, proof of his manhood pressed to her thigh. Their earlier roughness had dissipated into something deeper, something darkly alluring and more intoxicating than retribution. They’d gone far beyond rough play. She was not a girl any longer in the places where they played now, their mouths on each other, their hands exploring where they caressed through layers of wools and muslins. Anna would have lingered in that sensual darkness if not for the carriage jolting to a stop in front of the house and putting an end to it. The ride home seemed much shorter than the ride to town.
Stepan withdrew, setting her aside, and exited first to give her time to gather her composure. It was a nice sentiment, although a useless one. Her composure was scattered to the four winds. There would be no gathering it, but she could at least straighten her clothes and create the illusion. When she was ready, Stepan helped her down with enviable aplomb. His face was set in its usual formidable stoic lines. Only his eyes, burning like embers in charcoal, hinted at something more tempestuous. One would never guess moments earlier he’d had his hands on her breasts, his body pressed to hers with evidence of his desire at her leg, their breaths coming in mutual pants and sighs as they pushed each other to the edges of sanity.
His cinereous gaze held hers, his hand briefly caressing the heart at her neck, momentarily reminiscent of other intimate touches. ‘You should have pearls. Not a bauble on a ribbon,’ he murmured in low tones, rife with sensuality that turned her insides to treacle once more. She half suspected he would kiss her, there in front of the coachman. Instead, he stepped back, gave her a bow and excused himself. ‘Your pardon if I don’t see you inside. I have some late business I must see to.’ He climbed back in the coach, gave the signal and was off. At midnight. To do who knew what, leaving her standing in the drive after all that.
Anna-Maria drew her wrap tightly about her shoulders, letting her mind take its time in assimilating what had just happened. He’d kissed her senseless. He’d done more than kiss her. He’d touched her, he’d caressed her and she’d touched and caressed him, and then he’d dropped her off and driven away as if it were of no consequence. To do what? Or was it to see someone? A cold nugget settled in the midst of the warm heat at her core. Had he left her to seek out a mistress, perhaps the woman he’d spent the long winter days with when he wasn’t at Dimitri’s?
She felt hot and cold all at once at the thought. Anna pressed her hands to her cheeks, hardly daring to believe Stepan would kiss one woman and leave her for the bed of another. Yet, where else would he be going this time of night? Or perhaps he was simply giving himself time and her time, as well. Heaven knew what had happened tonight deserved some consideration. Anna climbed the steps to the front door. It was blessedly warm inside and she made her way to her room, already lost in the haze of her thoughts, all of which centred around Stepan. These did not feature worries over a phantom mistress, but featured the two of them as they’d been tonight, surly and sensual by turn.
Anna turned up the lamp in her room and began to undress. Stepan had been jealous tonight of the captain. There had been a tone to his words when he’d come upon them in the inn yard. He’d not spoken like a brother protecting a sister, but like a man protecting a woman.
What had he said? ‘No one in the assembly hall tonight would ever think you were a little girl.’ And then just now in the drive, ‘You deserve pearls’...a young woman’s first jewels that marked a debutante’s transition into society and out of the schoolroom, a girl no longer. In Kuban, a girl received pearls when she first started putting her hair up for formal occasions, a feminine rite of passage.
Perhaps those words tonight had touched her most of all. Stepan had seen her as a woman, had treated her as a woman, had touched her as a woman. She fumbled with the laces to her pink gown and the dress slid to the floor, leaving her in her chemise. The lamp caught the shadow of her nipples through the fabric, dusky rose in the light. He’d touched her there. Tentatively, she put her hands on her breasts, retracing Stepan’s caress. She lifted them, cupping herself, running her thumbs over the still tender peaks, recalling that tonight she had responded to him as a woman responded to a man.
The realisation forced her to examine the other half of the equation as she slipped her cotton nightgown over her head. Tonight, she had seen Stepan as a man. Tonight, they had not been family friends. Gone had been the constraints of couching Stepan in a brotherly role. There’d been nothing brotherly about his behaviour. It had been replaced by something else. It prompted the question—what did tonight mean? It was an echo of the question she’d asked at breakfast. What did it mean to be with him? Who were they to one another if their old roles had been cast away? What new roles might they assume?
Anna-Maria burrowed beneath the warmth of her blankets and blew out her lamp. Those were thoughts for another day because she knew very well that to answer one of those questions would only bring on more. Tonight, it would be enough to relive the discoveries made in the more tender moments: discoveries about herself, about him, about what might lay beyond. Those would be fine thoughts to fall asleep on. Her only regret was that they hadn’t had their waltz.
* * *
He should have waltzed with her. Stepan leaned back against the squabs of the carriage, regret and unsatisfied arousal warring for his attentions. If he’d waltzed with her, if he’d gone back inside with her, none of this would have happened. He wouldn’t be in a carriage after midnight alone with an erection that wasn’t going to resolve itself. For that matter, he wouldn’t have been in a carriage with Anna-Maria, his mouth on her mouth, her throat, her neck, her ears, his hands on her breasts, her body pressed to his. Just remembering the heat of those moments was enough to uncomfortably sustain his erection.
He’d had no business kissing her, not after the disaster of kissing her the first time. He’d had no business touching her, but that had held little sway when their bodies had decided to duel. Then the duel had become less a competition and more a co-operation as they pushed each other towards pleasure. He’d like to say he hadn’t enjoyed it, that it had all been for her benefit, another lesson of sorts about the consequences of actions. But that would be a lie. He had enjoyed it. He’d savoured the feel of her hands on his face, of her teeth sinking in to his ear, of the swell of her own natural passion. There was so much more he could show her.
No. There would be no more. He could not risk it. Any more and he’d need to announce his intentions—intentions he was not entirely clear on himself. What did his attraction to Anna-Maria mean? Where did it lead? Perhaps the better question was where could it lead? She deserved far mor
e than him. He had no family to offer her. He didn’t even know if he had love—real love—to offer her. Was he even capable of that? How could he be when he’d never known it himself?
These were sobering thoughts and they did their work subduing his arousal. He had no business pursuing Anna-Maria when all he could offer her was all he’d ever been able to offer a woman—an affair, a few nights, a few months between the sheets with a man capable of giving pleasure, but not much else. Anna-Maria was not meant for a casual lover. She was meant for a husband, one of two things he could never be.
The carriage rolled to a halt at the edge of the bluffs and Stepan got out, grabbing a lantern. He shaded his eyes and looked around, letting out the signal whistle, the call of a black-headed gull. He knew a moment’s worry until Joseph materialised in the dark. ‘How did everything go? Is the vodka off?’ He put a hand on the boy’s thin shoulder, relieved to see him safe.
‘Yes.’ Joseph was grinning in the darkness.
‘And the others, is everyone safe?’
‘They’re probably halfway to London.’ What Joseph meant was that they were as safe as they could be and that was safe enough for now. They were beyond Captain Denning’s reach at any rate. Stepan nodded his head in relief. Perhaps this was like the worry a father felt when his child was released into world and he could no longer protect him.
‘Good.’ Stepan removed his hand from Joseph’s shoulder. ‘You’ve done well. Do you need a ride anywhere?’ He gestured to the carriage. It was too late for Joseph to be out walking. He realised he wasn’t sure where the lad slept these days.
‘No.’ Joseph shook his head. ‘I’ll just go back down to the caves and catch a few winks. Me and some of the other boys have blankets and it’s comfortable enough.’
Seduced by the Prince's Kiss Page 8
