She’d deal with this latest aggravation later.
Clevedon first.
She turned to face him, bracing her hands against the edge of the disgracefully cluttered worktable.
She took pride in the neatness and order of her shop, a stunning contrast to life in her parents’ household, or what had passed for a household. But it didn’t matter what he thought of the disarray, she told herself. How would he know the difference between how a workroom ought and ought not to be maintained? And what did he care?
“You’re not to come here again,” she said. “Ever.”
“That suits me,” he said. “This is the last place on earth I’d wish to be.”
“You’re not to buy my daughter any more gifts,” she said.
“Why did you think I would?”
“Because she’s a conniving little minx who knows how to wrap men about her finger,” she said.
“So like her mother,” he said.
“Yes, I connived, and I wrapped you about my finger. But now I’m done with that. What did I ever want of you but your betrothed?”
Liar, liar.
“We’re not betrothed,” he said, “thanks to you.”
“Thanks to me?” she said with a mocking laugh. Mocking him. Mocking herself. “You’re not betrothed because of you. Why didn’t you make your so-carefully-rehearsed speech to that beautiful girl? The speech to which you devoted a mere half hour for the most important question of your life—”
“Clara doesn’t need—”
“But why should you take any trouble, when you take for granted everything you have? You’re used to getting whatever you want and losing interest as soon as you get it.”
“I love her,” he said. “I’ve loved her since we were children. But you—”
“It’s my fault, is it?” she said. “I’m the demon destroying your happiness? Only look at yourself and listen to yourself. Like every other man, you want what you can’t have. Like every other man, you’ll stay interested—even obsessed—until you get it. You came here this evening because you can’t think straight—because it drives you mad not to have something you want.”
His color darkened, and she saw his hands clench. “If you think that something is you, think again,” he said. “I don’t want you. But you want me, and I feel so sorry for you.”
Inwardly, it was as though she’d walked into a wall. Her head pounded and pain shot deep, deep inside.
She wanted him. She wanted to be the heartbreakingly beautiful girl he loved. She wanted to be someone else: a woman who mattered to him and to all those who mattered, instead of a nobody to be used and discarded. She wanted everything her family had taken away: every opportunity they’d squandered and all the damage done to her future long, long ago, generations before she was born.
Outwardly, she didn’t blink. “Then send me more customers,” she said. “I find money a great comfort in any calamity.”
She heard his sharp inhale. “By gad,” he said. “By gad, you’re a devil.”
“And you’re an angel?” She laughed.
He crossed the room, and in that instant she knew what would happen. But she was a devil and so was he, and she only stood there, gripping the table, daring him, daring her own destruction.
He stood over her, looking down into her dark, brilliant eyes. They mocked and taunted, as her voice had mocked and taunted him with the ways he lied to himself and everyone else.
The truth was, he was no angel. Three years ago, he’d abandoned his responsibilities, gone abroad, and found himself. He’d settled in Paris because he could be free there as he could never be in England. In Paris, his hunger for excitement and pleasure could do no damage to those he loved.
She promised nothing but damage, everywhere.
She was wrong for him in every possible way, and especially wrong at this time. Why couldn’t he have met her a year ago, three years ago?
But when he looked down into her eyes, right and wrong meant nothing. He and she were two of a kind, and like called to like, and he wanted her. And she, who read him so easily and so well, had spoken one needle-sharp truth after another.
Yes, he’d go on wanting her until he had her.
Then it would be done, and he could be free of her.
He cupped her face and tilted it upward and brought his mouth to hers and kissed her. She turned her head away, breaking the kiss. He trailed his mouth along her cheek, to her ear and down. Her scent rose from her neck, and all the air he breathed then was her and all he knew then was her.
“Fool,” she said. “Fool.”
“Yes,” he said. He wrapped his arms about her and pulled her away from the table and dragged her up against him.
That was right, no matter how desperately wrong it was. It was right, the warmth of her back against his forearm, and the way her supple body fit to his, as though it had been tailored special in some infernal shop where Beelzebub presided.
He was done for, caught. Heat pumped through him, fever-fierce, and scorched his reason.
This was all he’d ever wanted: possession. Images burned in his mind—the cool way she’d taken her leave of him in the opera house . . . men colliding with one another or stumbling over their own feet when she passed . . . the way she had of turning her head . . . the graceful arc of her fan, sweeping over her dress . . . the light movement of her hand touching her shoulder in the place where he’d touched her. All this and more—every moment in her company—all of it was swirling in his mind and racing through his veins when he took her into his arms.
This was what he’d wanted. To hold her. To keep her.
Mine.
Unthinking, like a brute.
With one arm he swept the table clear. Pieces of cloth, bits of lace and ribbons wafted down, while spools of thread, thimbles, and other bric-a-brac clattered to the floor.
He lifted her onto the table.
She set her hand against his chest, to push him away. He laid his hand over hers, and held hers there, over his pounding heart. He lifted her chin and dared her, his gaze locking with hers. Her eyes were wide and so dark, as dark as night. That was where he wanted to be: lost in the darkness, the unknowable place that was Noirot.
Noirot. That was all he knew. He didn’t know if that was truly her name. He didn’t know her Christian name. He didn’t know whether she’d ever had a husband. It didn’t matter.
She brought her hands up and grasped his head and pulled him to her. She wrapped her legs about his hips and kissed him in that wild way of hers, holding nothing back, and demanding the same everything from him.
He gave it, too, in a mad, hungry kiss, while his hands moved greedily over her, wanting and wanting, endlessly wanting. He’d stored it up for so long. Mere weeks had passed since he met her, yet it seemed forever that he’d wanted her. It seemed an eternity he’d lived in dreams and fantasies and the memories that came unbidden, haunting his days and nights. Now he wasn’t dreaming. Now he was alive, finally, after sleepwalking for a lifetime.
Under his hands, silk and muslin and lace rustled, the sound so intimate, inviting possession. But everywhere he found obstacles, layer upon layer of her curst fashion between his hands and her skin. He slid his hand over her bodice, seeking skin, remembering the velvety miracle of hers, and its warmth. The memory was maddening, because he couldn’t touch her in the way he wanted, lingeringly. For all his demented heat, he knew they had little time, no time, only a moment. They’d met at the wrong time and they were not meant for each other and this was all he’d have.
No time.
He dragged up her skirt and petticoats and slid his hand up over the fine muslin drawers. Awareness crackled, electric: of the smooth flesh under his hand . . . its heat warming the thin fabric . . . the sweet fullness of her thighs . . .
But they had no time. He found the ope
ning to the drawers. He heard her sharp inhalation as his fingers slid over the softness there. Then, as he stroked, she gave a little, unwilling cry, which she quickly smothered against his mouth.
He knew what he was doing. A part of him knew where they were and how mad it was. A part of him knew he’d closed the door behind him, but hadn’t locked it. A part of him knew this was a room anyone might enter at any moment. All this was in his mind, in the smallest part of his mind. The awareness hovered and nagged, a low, urgent warning: Make haste, make haste.
He was a fool and he ought to be mortified. After all this time, to be no more than a schoolboy, wanting a girl, and stealing a moment for a furtive and hurried coupling.
But he couldn’t stop.
She reached down and unbuttoned his trousers, and he gasped against her mouth as she touched him, her hand grasping his swollen shaft, and sliding up and down, and his mind went dark, and there was only need and heat.
He pushed her hand away, and pushed into her. She gave another little cry, again quickly stifled, and then there was only the sound of their breathing, ragged and harsh, as he thrust again and again, merely a brute, possessing, mindless.
Mine.
He felt her nails dig into his arms and he felt her body shudder as pleasure caught her, but that was all. She didn’t cry out. He heard only the sound of her breath, quick and shallow.
He wanted more, endless more, but he’d waited too long, wanted too long, and when her muscles contracted about him so fiercely at her climax, his control shattered. Pleasure pounded through him like a live thing, dragging him to a precipice, and over. And down he went, in a surge of triumph so ferocious that he never thought of pulling away. It was too late, too late. He felt her spasms as her pleasure peaked again, and he heard her hoarse cry, damning him to hell, and happiness flooded him, and he spilled into her, in a fiery rush of relief and raging joy.
Marcelline did not want to cling to him, but she had to, or she’d slide off the table and slither to the floor in a limp heap. Her heart had slowed from its frenzy, and now beat slow and fierce, a sledgehammer at her ribs.
Oh, she was a fool, the greatest fool there ever was! She could have lived in blissful ignorance. She could have supposed all men were the same and coupling was a relief for strong feeling as well as a great pleasure.
Now she knew that the simple act could be volcanic, and the world could begin and end in a few minutes, leaving everything upended, the universe destroyed and rebuilt, and nothing as it had been before.
But the day had offered one injury after another. What was one more catastrophe?
She’d made a fatal mistake, and it wouldn’t be the first time. She’d survived others. She’d survive this.
He held her still, so tightly, his powerful arms bracing her back. She needed to push him away. She should have done it long since, at least at the critical moment. She knew one couldn’t rely on a man to remember to withdraw at such a time. But she couldn’t be relied on, either. She’d wanted him inside her. She’d wanted him to be hers and hers alone, even if it was only for a moment, only for this once. And she hadn’t wanted to let go.
Even now.
She let herself wallow for one more moment in the strength and warmth enveloping her. She let herself inhale his scent, purely male and purely his. She let her cheek graze his—and somehow that seemed more intimate than anything they’d done, though he stood between her legs, though she felt his shaft slipping from her and the wetness of his seed . . . the seed he’d spilled inside her because she hadn’t the wit or will to prevent it. And that, too—their savage, desperate coupling, for she wouldn’t call it lovemaking, never, never—had seemed a greater intimacy than if they’d lain naked in bed, enjoying each other at their leisure.
But she was a fool, and there was the beginning and end of it.
“You must let go,” she said. Her voice was thick.
He tightened his hold, his arms like iron bands.
“You must let go,” she said.
“Wait,” he said. “Wait.”
“We haven’t time.” She kept her voice low. “They’ll want me for dinner, and someone will come. You can’t stay, in any case. You can’t stay,” she repeated. “And you must never come back.”
She felt him tense.
“We can’t leave it like this,” he said.
“We shouldn’t have begun it.”
“Too late for that.”
“It’s done,” she said, “and I’m done with you and you’re done with me.” She pushed, and this time he let go. She found her handkerchief and made quick work of cleaning herself, then pushed her petticoat and skirt down.
While she attended to herself, he put his clothing in order.
She started to get down from the table, but he must be a glutton for punishment—or, more likely, he truly was done, and touching her again meant nothing to him—because he caught her by the waist and lifted her down in the same easy way he’d lifted her up, as though she weighed nothing.
She remembered how easily and gently he’d lifted Lucie out of his lap and into her arms. She remembered the wistful smile he’d bent on her child. Her throat tightened and she had all she could do not to weep.
She’d heard, she wasn’t sure where or when, that he’d lost a sister at a young age . . .
But what did it matter?
She was starting toward the door, steeling herself to watch him walk out of her life forever, when she heard the thud.
Leonie would have finished locking up the shop long before now, and she would have made sure nobody surprised Marcelline with an interruption. No one ought to be downstairs at present. The family ought all to be upstairs, setting out dinner.
“Wait,” she said in an undertone.
She went to the door and pressed her ear to it. Nothing.
“I thought I heard something,” he said softly. “Erroll? Would she—”
“No. Not after we close up shop. She’s not allowed, but she wouldn’t come, in any case. She’s afraid of the dark.” That had started after she recovered from the cholera. That and other anxieties. “Be quiet, will you?”
Another thump. Someone was out there, stumbling about in the darkness.
He reached for the door handle. “I’ll deal with—”
“Don’t be stupid,” she whispered. “You can’t be here.”
Carefully she opened the door. She looked down the passage in the direction the sound had come from. She saw a faint light in the little office where Leonie kept her ledgers. There, lately, they’d been storing Marcelline’s designs, in a locked box. And there, today, they’d set out their bait.
Her heart began to race.
She slipped through the door into the gloomy passage. She heard his soft footstep behind her. She stopped and gestured at him to stay in the workroom.
“Don’t be—”
She put her hand over his mouth. “I have to deal with this,” she hissed. “It’s business. It’s our spy. We’ve been waiting for her.”
He was shattered, still.
That was the only excuse he had for heeding her, and as an excuse, it lasted but a moment.
He ought not to be here, certainly not at this hour, after the shop was closed.
But the shop . . . A spy? Had not Clara said something about—
Clara!
With the thought of her, cold shame washed over him. Betrayal. He’d betrayed his friend, his future wife.
My wife, my wife, he told himself. He smoothed his neckcloth as though he could smooth over what he’d done. He tried to imbed her image in his mind, to engrave the picture of his future, the one he’d always supposed was the right, the only possible one. He would wed the sweet, beautiful girl he’d loved since she was a child, the fair, blue-eyed child he’d met when he was still grieving for his sister. She had a sweet innocence
like Alice’s and she looked up to him the way Alice had looked up to her big brother. He’d always assumed he’d marry Clara and take care of her and protect her forever.
But at the first excuse, and with the slightest encouragement, he’d run away from her and stayed away; and after three years of indulging himself, he still wasn’t satisfied. No, he must betray her trust within a few days of returning to her.
But the shame wasn’t strong enough to wipe out the recollection of what had happened minutes ago or the sensation of the earth having shifted on its axis.
Never mind, never mind.
He’d had Noirot and he was done with her.
And here he was, standing like an idiot, while she— What the devil was she about?
“No!” someone shrieked.
He moved noiselessly into the passage. A faint glow a few steps down from the workroom showed an open doorway.
“I hope Mrs. Downes has paid you well for betraying my trust,” he heard Noirot say. “Because you’ll never work in this trade again. I’ll see to it.”
“You can’t hurt me,” the higher-pitched voice answered. “You’re finished. Everyone knows you’re the duke’s whore. Everyone knows you lift your skirts for him, practically under his bride’s nose.”
“Regardless what anybody knows or doesn’t know, I recommend you give me back those patterns, and not make matters worse for yourself. There’s only one way in and out, Pritchett. And you won’t get past me.”
“Won’t I?”
Another crash, as of furniture knocked over. A clatter of broken crockery. A screech of rage.
He didn’t care what Noirot had said about her dealing with this. He didn’t care that he oughtn’t to be discovered here. A business problem was none of his affair, but this was getting out of hand. In a minute, the others would hear the noise and come running downstairs. Erroll might well escape her nursemaid and run down with the others, and be hurt by a flying missile.
All this raced through his mind while he moved quietly toward the doorway. An object—a bowl or vase or pot or some such—sailed through the door and crashed against the wall inches from his head. He burst into the room in time to see a woman throw an inkstand at Noirot. As she dodged, Noirot tripped over a toppled chair and fell. He heard another crash. Looking that way, he saw an overturned lantern on the desk and the flames licking over the stacks of papers there. In the blink of an eye, the flames leapt to the window curtains and raced upward.