Page 50 of Hazard a Guest
“Oh.” She blew out a breath and shrugged, making her necklace flash and glitter. “Maybe. He might also still think I’m ignorant to what he’s doing. If Dot hadn’t come to tell me, I would be, and he has no way of knowing I’m an intimate of the Cains.”
She trailed off, her brow wrinkling as she considered the possibilities. “Although,” she said after a moment, meeting his eye, “you did tell him you areone ofmy barristers. That probably lit a little beacon of concern in him. Saints above, I hope it did.”
“I hope it did too,” Joe replied, a little thump of conquest thrumming in his chest.
Joe imagined a man like Beck would never expect to be overpowered, and if ever it were to happen, it would needs be by brawn. That was the problem with rich men and physically powerful ones. They never saw the real danger until it was already upon them.
Perhaps it was unworthy to take pleasure in that, but Joe always had. Maybe that was his demon, he thought.
“I don’t suppose there’s any wine left?” Ember asked with a sigh, reaching up to stretch her arms over her head, closing her eyes and indulging in a deep yawn that colored the words that followed. “I ought not to, but I wouldn’t mind something sweet to end the night.”
He stared. Gawked, really. Ogled?
He cleared his throat and averted his eyes. “There’s half a bottle. I’ll get you some.”
She hummed in response, allowing him to set about his task. She turned in a half circle, admiring the room.
She paced over to the small chest of drawers near the coal burner and beheld herself in the small half mirror atop it. “You know, I thought Penrose was blowing smoke when he said that there weren’t any rooms prepared for a woman available, but this one really is different to mine. The furniture, the little amenities. Maybe he wasn’t being a rat bastard and actually was telling the truth.”
“I don’t think he’s a bully,” Joe replied, uncorking the half-full bottle and pouring into the small washroom glass. “Just deeply oblivious and too wealthy for it ever to have come to haunt him.”
He paused, looking down at what was left of the bottle, and grabbed himself a glass too. Maybe it would help him sleep.
She chuckled, glancing over her shoulder at him. “Obliviousis one word for it. Did you hear him tonight ranting about his family being the backbone of Anglican legacy or some such nonsense? He went on about it for quite a while, but it might have been after you’d already retired.”
“I missed it,” he admitted, shuffling back over to her with her glass outstretched. “But he said something similar a few days ago to me as well.”
“I’m sure he did,” she replied with amusement.
The wine, he realized, matched her dress when it was catching direct light. The coals and candle flame caught all the low pinks and crystal highlights in it, reflecting prettily on the velvet of her bodice.
“Maybe that’s his issue,” she speculated after a healthy sip. “Not that I’m a woman. Not that I own a business. Not that I’m Irish. Just that I’m a filthy, filthy papist. Wouldn’t that be something?”
“Something, yes,” he replied, chuckling too. “But not reallysurprising, given how obsessed he is with the Lazarus family’s otherness. Perhaps I should ambush him with mine too.”
“Don’t you dare,” she said, bracing herself from behind against the chest of drawers. “Freddy can’t carry the entire weight of his affection alone. I’ve already asked far too much from the dear fool as it is.”
Joe paused, that anxious sleeplessness starting to scratch at him over what had happened here some hours past. He didn’t want to talk about Freddy.
“You said you’re keeping track of the cards already played,” he said instead, drawing her attention to something safer. “How? Do you have some mnemonic tactic?”
She shook her head, looking a little bashful about it. “No, nothing so impressive. It’s just a quirk of my natural perception. I’ve always been able to do it, but only with numbers. I’m helpless with any other subject.”
“You’ve never been helpless in your life,” he returned immediately, flashing her a smile at his conviction of the statement. “Not once.”
“Well,” she said, her voice dropping a level, those golden eyes flicking toward his bedroom door and then back to him. “Maybe once.”
He felt his entire body tense, a billow of heat flashing up from his bare feet and through the entire core of him, flaring and flashinglike the tinderbox had when he’d lit the lantern. He could feel it again just at that sly reference, the full-bodied impact of it, the taste, the feel of her.
She lowered her lashes, and he wondered if she was feeling it too. “I quite enjoyed it,” she added in barely a whisper.
“That’s well,” he managed to respond, “because if we keep talking about it, it’s going to happen again.”
“Oh, Mr. Cresson,” she replied, her lashes flicking back up, a smirk finding its way onto her wine-tinted lips, “don’t promise me all the things I want at once, now.”
He heaved a sigh, already moving toward her, already aiming his glass at the wooden surface of the chest of drawers, already feeling her under his hands before he could half close the gap between them.
He drew her up into his arms, groaning softly at the way she looped her wrists around his neck, and slanted his lips over hers, ravenous for something far sweeter than the taste of wine.
