Page 38 of Forgery, Love, and Other Lies
“Noted, Miss Frampton. And I’ll pay for his shoes. Two pairs if he needs them.” Young ruffians often did.
Her steps hitched, and he tightened his arms to give her support.
“You called me Fiona,” she said. “On the stairs.” She flicked a glance over her shoulder toward the staircase. “And the other night, when you were walking me home.”
“Ah. Apologies. Emotion quite carried me away, and I forgot formality.”
“No. Do not apologize. I think, perhaps, we should dispense with formalities.”
Did his cock tighten because the sound of his name on her lips was an eventuality now? Yes, it did.
“Very well,” he said, his voice low and needy even to his own ears, “Fiona.” He’d said it in a fit of anger earlier. He said it now with intention, slowly rolling it over his tongue, enjoying the sound and feel of it.
Her eyes closed with a shiver, and he knew, knew without a damn doubt, that she felt what he did. That the shiver was her own tell of lust and desire, and when she spoke, it was to wrap his name up with a saucy curve of her lips.
“Lysander.”
“Will you call me Zander? I confess I dislike my given name. My father named us all, and he was a rather fanciful man. Theodore and Andrew made it out fine, but not the rest of us. Lysander, Raphael, Atlas, Magnificent. Tell me, Fiona, what are we to do with those?”
She chuckled. “I rather like it. Lysander. But… Zander… I suppose I can do as you wish.” She opened her eyes, and they were brighter than the diamonds dancing in her mask.
Hell.To hell with convention. To hell with caution. To hell with everyone but her. No one would care anyway, not here, not with their mistresses in tow and champagne bubbling through their blood. He crashed her body against his, held her tight as he swept her around a curve of the dance floor, and lowered his head into the crook of her neck to whisper a promise, a vow.
“The first dark corner we find, Fiona, I’m going to back you into it and steal a kiss and make you forget that boy in the mews behind your shop.” That last part, born of hot possession not cold, calm sense. But he meant it with every broken bit and bent bob that made up who he was.
The cheeks below her mask burned red with something more than exertion. “You saw that?”
“You told me you had no suitor.”
“I don’t.”
“Good. I’m going to kiss you so the idea of suitors quite flies from your head.” Dangerous words, to himself as well as to her, but he could not seem to stop them.
Her hands clung to his shoulders, her breath quickened, and she turned her head until her breath fluttered near his ear. “Swear it.”
He’d been right. She wanted him as he did her, and the spiraling rhythm of the waltz wound its way into his very soul, making him dizzy, turning the candles above into blazing stars. He grabbed her hand and tugged her off the dance floor.
Just an infatuation. Just an infatuation. How the hell could it be anything else? He barely knew the woman. He did not know her favorite color or how she liked her tea. He did not know what dishes she liked for dinner or if she enjoyed mornings. Did she prefer solitude to company? He knew none of this.
All he knew was that she was talented with a brush, that she was a determined minx who would not give in to fear. He knew she made friends with dukes as well as with street urchins named Thomas and that she looked as breathtaking in wool and muslin as she did in silk and diamonds. He knew she loved her family as much as he loved his, and that she would sell her soul—would give her very safety—for them. Had already done so. He knew she was better than him by miles, ocean lengths.
And he knew it was aninfatuation. But he’d given the night, this only night, to that temporary emotion, to let it live and burn bright until it piled in ashes round his feet come morning. So he kept his head bent to her neck and pressed his hand on her back lower, scandalously low, flirting with the round curve of her delicious arse, and he whispered. Whispered every hot thought that flitted through his head, giving them passage on his lips with ease. No lock, no key there. And as he flew her round the dance floor, her body moving like wind across water next to his, the world dropped away. And he did not care. The men and women—gone. He did not care. The masquerade somewhere lost in time. He did not care. The missing dowager, the paintings, all of it dissipated like so much rain into the soil. He did not care.
Each spin around the ballroom brought them closer till two bodies moved as one and until he could no longer touch her and not touch hermore.
He spied a curtained alcove, pulled her toward it, and found it empty. He deposited her inside and fixed her with a hard gaze. “Do not leave here. Keep the curtain closed. Do not take off your mask, and—”
“Do not breathe, Zander?” The whirl of the dance still flushed across her cheeks, and her breast rose and fell too quickly. Her hand fluttered up to absently and innocently tease the line of the low bodice.
Hell. He laughed. Groaned, too, arousal and mirth a heady concoction. He needed to cool off, and she needed to rest. Infatuation was supposed to live and die tonight, not bloom into something entirely different. If he insisted on treading this path, and he did, he must tiptoe.
So he killed his mirth and gave her one more glare for good measure. “Breathe, Fiona, but do not leave this alcove. I’ll return shortly with something to drink.” He pulled the curtain closed and followed in Theo’s direction. Laughing loud enough to break through the sweetly vibrating strings.
God, she amused him, and he liked nothing better than to laugh. It was the only thing some days that made the dark world brighter. Laughter was like his broken bits of glass and shattered lockets—thrown away by others but hoarded by him because he knew, had always known, where true value lay.
And now he knew it lay in her.
Fourteen
