After the Kiss Page 15

  “Have I truly abducted you, Margaret?” he asked softly from behind her.

  Instead of answering, she walked away from him, concentrated on the contents of another bookcase.

  “Smytheton says that the sitting room has been cleared for the modiste. What modiste?” she asked, staring at a title in a language she did not know.

  “Don’t women like clothes? My sisters have always given me that impression,” he said, following her.

  “I won’t be here that long, Michael,” she said, glancing at him. She knew full well how much time it took to sew a dress. “We came to a bargain, you and I. A week, and that is all. No more than that.”

  One eyebrow rose.

  “I’ve already received word from the modiste, Margaret. She will attend you this afternoon.”

  “So I am to fetch water from the well in a newly crafted dress? Something silk, with a bit of lace, please,” she said in disgust. “So the rabbits and squirrels are not offended. Or teach school in a ballgown?”

  “Or you might attend the theater with me.”

  “By all means,” she said sardonically. “I must be seen in order to attract my next protector.”

  “It is my fault that you have no other clothing to wear, Margaret.” His eyes narrowed even though his tone was agreeable. She’d been afraid of the emotions he made her feel, but never the man. But if she had not felt the tenderness of his touch, she would have been cautious of him at that moment.

  “If you’re in the mood for grand gestures, send your coachman back to my cottage for my clothing, Michael.”

  “How many dresses do you have, Margaret?” he asked.

  “It’s none of your concern, Michael. Don’t you see that? In a week…six days, it will not matter. My wardrobe, how I live, even where I live will not be a concern of yours. You cannot offer me inducements to remain here. I will not.”

  “Very well, Margaret,” he said, the words clipped. “I will send the modiste away. It was an act of reparation for taking you from your home so precipitously. An apology, if you will. I never thought your pride so unbending that you would refuse to accept anything from me.”

  “It would be better,” she said softly, “if there were no more links between us. Not your kindness, Michael, nor your generosity.”

  They were already entwined by an emotion that neither accepted with good grace. A combination of passion and desire coupled with a curiosity that had not yet been appeased. Or perhaps they simply ignored its presence.

  Her hands reached out and brushed his cuff. The material of his shirt was as soft as it appeared. Another measure of wealth, if he only knew it. The stiffest, scratchiest linen was reserved for the poor, the quality of it inferior to that of lawn.

  “It’s the last thing I will give you, Margaret,” he said. “I promise,” he said.

  His words shamed her. He had given her far more than a dress. His greatest gift was a child whose existence would remain secret from him.

  Tell him, her conscience whispered. But she could not. He was a man of power, influence. She had no wish to be his mistress and would not allow her child to be used as leverage.

  One eyebrow rose imperiously. “It’s only a dress, Margaret. A nightrail, perhaps, nothing more.”

  He leaned forward to place a kiss on her cheek. His fingers rested beneath her chin.

  Her head tilted back, her lips opened. The softest sigh emerged from between her lips as he kissed her. There was so much pleasure even in a kiss.

  “Let them fit you,” he said, the words spoken against her lips. Then his mouth covered hers, his smile adding a uniqueness to his kiss.

  She pulled away from him and nodded, words beyond her.

  Chapter 17

  Patience in passion leads to

  greater joy than haste.

  The Journals of Augustin X

  Michael had always attempted to separate himself from those activities of women that were meant, by their very nature, to be grating. A week ago he would have fled from the very thought of a modiste and her coterie of seamstresses, or fittings. He would have labeled the man a liar if anyone had told him that he’d be sitting in the morning room amidst a group of giggling women and having quite an enjoyable time.

  He sat on the divan, arms outstretched to either side. A pose of indolence. Small dolls, attired in the latest fashions, lay sprawled on the floor in front of him like a miniature harem of exhausted coquettes.

  His attention was on Margaret standing on a pedestal, slowly being stripped of her green dress.

  He crossed his legs to hide his sudden jubilant tumescence. It did not help that Margaret stared directly at him, her cheeks growing more pink as she stood there, bared to her shift.

  He should have known that the sight of her would affect him. He was not necessarily sane around her. Yesterday in a carriage had proven that.

  He should be about his work again. There was the Cyrillic cipher to solve. Less nonsense and more rational discourse, that’s what he needed. More a semblance of normalcy. A bit of logic in this sudden world of confusion.

  “You must remain perfectly still,” the modiste complained. “Else we’ll never get the proper measurements.”

  Did she know that he grew hard at the sight of her? It seemed as if she did, what with that glittering look she gave him. He sat up fully, realizing suddenly that it was not anger in her eyes, but humiliation.

  Bloody hell. He stood, strode to her side.

  “Give us a moment,” he said, turning to the modiste.

  The modiste, a woman of some advanced years, stepped back, away from him. The three women who had accompanied her left the room with remarkable quickness.

  In only a moment, it seemed, he and Margaret were alone.

  “Must you do this?” Margaret’s arms spread wide to indicate the bolts of cloth, ribbon.

  “I never meant to embarrass you,” he said, honestly.

  “There are so many of them,” she said, staring at the floor.

  “And you’ve never been undressed among a group of women?” he asked, feeling an absurd bout of tenderness.

  “There has hardly been an occasion,” she said. “I’ve sewn all my own clothes.”

  “Then I have erred again,” he said. “Forgive me.”

  She met his look with one of her own. He wondered if she knew that there was an almost imperious tilt to her chin sometimes. A decidedly fascinating quality of challenge about her.

  Michael rarely obeyed impulses unless they were of a cerebral nature. He was highly creative within the structure of his thoughts. But never in his actions. He was almost never impetuous.

  Except with her.

  The room was empty except for the two of them, the door was closed; she stood on her pedestal.

  He looked up at her face. She glanced at him, then away. Did she know what he wanted? Her shift swathed her from neck to knee and was tied in tiny bows down the front. His fingers reached out and pulled open the first bow.

  “Please let me,” he said softly, asking for absolution for his eagerness and permission in one breath. He wanted to see her. Wanted her naked before him. An odd wish, perhaps, but one that had kept him rooted to the room, to this ritual of women.

  The second bow was loosened. Her hand reached up and flattened on his. Her gaze did not relinquish his.

  “Please,” he murmured.

  After a moment, she dropped both her hand and her gaze.

  Slowly, he untied the bows, reached inside with both hands, and spread open the fabric revealing her beautiful breasts. He brushed his thumb over her nipples.

  She closed her eyes in response.

  The bows only reached to the waist. Slowly he pulled the shift up, revealing her thighs, her hips. Her bout with modesty was lost as he raised the shift above her head, threw it to the floor.

  Her figure was lush. Full breasts, hips that curved enticingly, long legs.

  She stood there without moving or attempting to shield herself from his gaz
e. He reached out a finger and trailed it from between her breasts to below her navel. An arrow of sensation.

  She uttered a soft, choked sound.

  He explored her with fingers and thumbs and palms, hearing the slight sounds she made as he did so. Her nipples were exquisitely erect, sensitive. Michael traced his fingers over the swell of her buttocks, the hollow at the base of her spine. She trembled at each stroke of his fingers.

  He savored the column of her throat, felt the rapid beat of her blood beneath his skin.

  “The women are waiting,” she murmured, breathless.

  “Let them wait,” he said.

  She stood before him, her eyes closed, lashes fanned against her cheeks. Her hands were flattened against her thighs.

  He placed his hands on her hips and stepped forward. Because she was on a pedestal, her breasts were at the perfect height for his mouth. He tongued a nipple, drew it into his mouth. When she sighed, he smiled against her skin.

  “To be powerless in passion is both maddening and arousing,” she murmured.

  “True,” he said, teasing the nipple with his tongue.

  “Something I read once,” she offered, her words ending in another sigh.

  “In the Journals?”

  She nodded, a slight, almost imperceptible gesture.

  He anointed her breast with another soft kiss. “Did you like reading those books, Margaret?”

  She smiled with her eyes still shut tight. But he noted that a flush warmed her cheeks.

  “Yes and no,” she admitted.

  “Why yes?”

  “I learned a great deal,” she said. The last word trailed off into a gasp as he opened his mouth, closed it softly over a distended nipple.

  “Why no?” he asked, pulling back and tracing a circle around the damp flesh of her breast with his fingers.

  She didn’t answer.

  He looked up, smiled. Her blush had deepened.

  “Why no?” he asked again.

  She opened her eyes, looked at him. There was only silence between them. Michael had the absurd feeling that she dared him in some inexplicable way.

  “I had certain questions,” she said. “But there was no one to ask.”

  He recalled only too well the graphic nature of the illustrations in Babby’s book. “Or practice with, perhaps?”

  Her eyes closed, as if she could not bear his scrutiny.

  “I would have volunteered to assist you,” he said.

  “Another act of charity?” Her eyes flew open and she smiled at him. There was that look again. A definite enticement.

  “A good cause, the education of innocents,” he replied.

  In a gesture he had not anticipated, in a movement he had not expected, she stepped down from the pedestal and placed her palm flat against his trousers.

  His smile faded beneath his surprise.

  “You might be an acceptable candidate,” she said.

  She measured the length of his arousal almost in judgment. Was he large enough for her? Hard enough?

  “Will I do?” A harsh question. She looked bemused at it.

  “Yes,” she said. Almost a breath of sound. Barely more. Her cheeks deepened in color. “Oh, yes.”

  He swelled even harder. An ardent and almost joyous response to her touch. He felt himself to be not unlike a cobra, tantalized and teased into making an appearance by the soft sounds of a flute. The instrument of his seduction was her hand, and the gaze that studied his body with infinite care.

  “If you would consider me,” he said, entering into her game, “I would be happy to oblige. What must I do?”

  She held out her hand and he took it. He thought later that he should have recognized it for what it was, an invitation to ecstasy.

  He stood in front of her, effortlessly handsome. He might have modeled for one of the statues in his pantheon. A god standing with nonchalant arrogance. No, not a god. A man altogether too human.

  Hers.

  The word trickled over her in a wondrous spirit of possessiveness. How fascinating that she’d not realized it. She had borrowed him for a time. A week. A few days.

  The sense of power she felt was intriguing. It lifted a corner of her lip as she watched him. One of his brows arched in tandem.

  She might do anything with him. Anything at all.

  All the questions the Journals had sparked might be answered in this week.

  “You have quite an interesting look on your face, Margaret,” he said. “Is this where I should cry off? Be restrained and return to my library?” His smile seemed to mock his words.

  “If you wish,” she said, pulling back.

  “God forbid you should think me a foolish man.”

  Stubborn, arrogant, impossibly handsome. But not foolish.

  “No,” she said. “But you do not like to be bested and you do have an affinity for numbers,” she said. She didn’t elaborate at his quizzical look.

  She took one step toward him. “I have read that it’s possible to see colors at certain moments of pleasure,” she said.

  “The Journals, again?”

  She nodded.

  She walked to him, reached up and began to slowly unwind the stock from his neck. His hands remained at his sides; he made no move to stop her or to halt her actions. Exactly in the pose she wanted him.

  Margaret stepped back, pulled his arms from his sleeves one by one, then pushed the coat off his shoulders. Picking it up, she flung it atop the chair in the corner. His only response was a quirk of his lip.

  She slowly unfastened the cuffs of his shirt. “Passion is not simply a physical state, but one of the mind,” she said, focusing her attention to the gold links that kept the two edges of material together.

  She looked up. His stare had narrowed, but he said nothing further. His smile, she was pleased to see, had disappeared.

  His shirt removed, he stood there bare chested. She ran the palm of her hands up and down his skin, wondering why it should be that a man’s chest should be so utterly fascinating. She explored the texture of his nipples half-hidden beneath the soft curling hair. “Does it give you pleasure, Michael, to have these stroked?”

  “Not as much as I receive from touching yours,” he said, his smile back in place, but altered in character. It seemed tighter, less amused.

  “Even kissing them does nothing?” She added the gesture to the question.

  He shook his head. Information, then, that she added to her store of knowledge about him. “But you like it when I touch you,” she said, rubbing his bare arms with the palms of her hands. She followed the contours of his chest, fingers splayed.

  “Yes.”

  Her hands trailed up to his shoulders, down to the waistband of his trousers. Her fingers traced a path from his abdomen, over his arm, to his back as she walked behind him. The muscles seemed as well defined there as on his chest. Her hands smoothed from the indentation of his spine up to his shoulder blades.

  She moved to the front of him again. Her fingers reached out and began to unfasten his trousers. His boots were removed with a joint effort. Then his stockings and the remainder of his clothes. A few moments later he stood in front of her, naked, and gloriously tumescent.

  Her hands reached out and cradled his erection.

  “Blue,” she said, stroking both palms up and down his length.

  “What?”

  “The first color. You should think of blue. Close your eyes,” she said, not looking up to see if he did so. Instead, her focus was on the hardness cradled between her hands. “Blue is a cool color,” she said, “the shade of deep water and the sky. Think of something blue and cooling,” she instructed him.

  “I doubt that will work,” he said dryly. “Not at long as you’re touching me.”

  She glanced up at him. His face had darkened in hue, as if the warmth between her hands traveled throughout his body.

  She reached out with one hand and placed her hand upon his stomach. Her other hand remained holding him, a s
elfish pleasure.

  “You must think blue,” she said softly. “The blue of your eyes, perhaps.”

  “Colors are beyond me at the moment,” he said.

  She removed her hands from him, the message implicit. “Blue,” she said gently chiding.

  “Blue,” he conceded after a long moment.

  Margaret smiled gently, realized that his restraint was formidable to allow her this play. A word would stop it, a gesture halt it, but he stood mute in front of her. A participant in her game.

  Waiting.

  “Blue,” she said, moving behind him again, trailing her fingers down his back, “is the color of invitation. The opening of the senses. The beginning of awareness. To think of blue,” she said, kissing a line from his right shoulder to his left, “is to make oneself open to the possibilities of life.”

  “All this from blue,” he said. His voice sounded rough. Her smile deepened.

  “Whereas green,” she said, moving his arms so that she might extend her own beneath them, “is the color of readiness. The bloom of spring, the emergence of nature. Ripeness for feeling.”

  She pressed her cheek against his back, extended her arms around him. She stood there for a long stretch of minutes, her cheek flattened against his back, her palms pressed to his chest. She could feel the booming beat of his heart beneath her fingertips.

  She drew her nails gently along the sides of his stomach, heard his indrawn breath.

  “What’s the next color?”

  “Are you ready for it?”

  “More than you know,” he said dryly.

  She moved to his side, glanced down at him, fully erect. “If I had been a maiden,” she said, “I would have been terrified of your size. It doesn’t look as if it would fit at all.”

  The muscle in his jaw clenched but otherwise he did not move. Such restraint. Admirable. She smiled and reached out and circled the head of his erection with one gentle finger.

  He closed his eyes.

  “Orange,” she said. “The color of a fire’s core. The color, they say, belonging to passion itself.”

  “Not red?”